Twenty-first century companies are in great need of innovative leaders. They need men and women who know how to put new ideas to work effectively and responsibly in every corner of their organizations. They need people who will define what's next in our markets and societies. But that doesn't mean...
Too many people in our lives believe that we all work to maintain a lifestyle outside of work. We go on about the work/life balance yet very few manage to find that happy medium.
Over the years I've participated in countless strategic planning projects, having spent several years as a management consultant and then as a member of the executive team of several public companies.
In 1961, Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen wrote a PDP-1 program to create a game they called SpaceWar! – oft-cited as the first video game. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell famously created PONG to rock our world. Space Invaders showed up in 1977. PacMan entered the lexicon in 1980, about...
As a reverse fairy tale for the CEO set, the reality television program Undercover Boss is fascinating, not so much in the witness-to-a-train- wreck mode of the rest of the genre, but because it is so revealing of our conflicted relationship with "the boss." The premise of the show—that the only way to get a clue about what's really going on in his (or her) organization, is for the boss to go undercover on the front lines—is all too often the actual reality in organizations of any size. Yet, at the same time, the view of the boss as the ultimate authority with the heroic power to swoop in and save the day—whether that means paying down a mortgage, granting an instant promotion, or banishing a reviled policy—holds sway in real life as well as on "reality" TV.
Innovation poses two enormous problems for most leaders given the way they are trained to think. First, it’s a time-based form of value. It goes sour like milk. This year’s “must-have” gadget will end up in a landfill next Christmas or at least be overwritten by Version 2.0. Second, innovation only pays in the future for which you presently have no data. As Kierkegaard put it “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
An Anglican parish launches a bold experiment with a radical model of how to “do church,” by replacing hierarchy with communities of passion, and unleashing the capabilities of its c
Only a third of excellent companies remain excellent over the long term. Even fewer change programs succeed. These are the facts, yet these need not be the odds of success for your organization. Insightful advice (beyond common sense) and pragmatic methods (readily applicable) are available to help...
Senior managers are often reluctant to break rank and suggest bold new ways of working or indeed to back their colleagues in taking such decisions, preferring to stick to the safe, tried and tested mi