It’s one of the most frequent questions I get in my work – and it usually comes from a leader after a workshop or in a discrete reply to a blog post. The question is, “I have an underperforming function that’s core to my new mission. How do I accomplish a change for the better?” […]
30 percent…and I think that’s generous. That’s the success rate for digital transformation noted in a recent BCG study. Using that as a benchmark, let’s talk about a tip that can help you improve those odds, and in fact, the odds of completing any significant organizational improvement work. Before we get into the specific coaching, […]
It was billed as a clash of titans – the greatest of all time against the young upstart. Analysts spent the run up exploring match ups and prognosticating. The forecast: Chiefs should win (more about that here and here). There were good reasons to believe that this could happen, most pointedly perhaps the week 12 drubbing […]
It’s one of the most interesting moments in our working sessions with Ops and Creative leaders. By looking at their history, we tee up the concept that the creation of new value is the result of combining fresh thinking from both inside and outside the firm. We then show the group how to harvest rich […]
At our core, humans are pattern-creating machines. To avoid cognitive overload, we do many, many things the same way every day. We get our coffee, put our pencil down, and even walk in the same paths over and over again. We like working with people who are like us and reflect back to us what […]
I remember it clearly: we had just released a new product, and as demand grew, the manufacturing team just could not deliver. This new device was used in a unique way, and there was a performance issue that had evaded our typical quality checkpoints. The sales team had been aggressively incentivized to switch clients over […]
Now that we’re beyond the initial lockdown and pause, I’m seeing many firms under immense pressure to move straight from strategy to implementation without taking stock diagnostically of their capabilities. Productive implementation is something that we used to take for granted – but with the accelerated shifts driven by remote work in the face of […]
Docking. It’s one of the most delicate and potentially dangerous parts of space flight. Imagine two objects traveling more than 17,000 miles per hour with significant mass and unconstrained three-dimensional movements subject to orbital mechanics. Any misalignment and the maneuver is a miss at best and catastrophic at worst. This used to be completed by […]
It’s been a journey these last couple of weeks. I’ve been working with teams in large businesses to help them execute – in other words, lock in – on the right project, the right team, and the right plan. Of course, it’s challenging to do this work remotely, but honestly, it’s more than that. Decisions and momentum […]
I work with larger private and public companies that have often acquired businesses, technologies, and talent through mergers or (more frequently) acquisitions. One specific challenge and opportunity that can release value at scale is the cross-pollination of unique value inside the acquired firm to its parent. There are two large systems in play in any […]
