Featured Posts
Which questions best describe your view of customers?
Superficially, customer insight is "the collection, deployment and interpretation of information that allows a business to acquire, develop and retain their customers." "Superficially?" Yes. The pursuit of customer insight tends to generate a heavy investment in[...]
Three management pretenses to stop today
Once the curtain has been pulled back and we understand that The Wizard is just an ordinary person, the booming voice from the disembodied, intimidating head doesn't work well anymore. There are three management practices that[...]
Not much has changed
Recently, I reconnected with an old friend. A mutual friend had told me of the strife our friend had experienced over the past few years so I sought to look him up and check in.[...]
Stories are difference-makers
"Stories are how we think. They are how we make meaning of life. Call them schemas, scripts, cognitive maps, mental models, metaphors, or narratives. Stories are how we explain how things work, how we make decisions, how[...]
Leaders Align
Some years ago I was returning from Montreal to Atlanta after a consulting project. The airplane had a scheduled stop in Boston. Prior to our landing the pilot informed the passengers of "terrible" crosswinds at[...]
Leaders Improve
Thankfully, the balance of the economy is resting quietly, your customers are comfortable with the level of service and quality that you provide, and your competitors are complacent and content with their share of the[...]
Leaders Act
Picture this: your car is stalled beside the road. Luckily, it’s just a dead battery, but there are no jumper cables around. A good Samaritan has offered to “give you a push” so you can[...]
Leaders Clarify
In a subtropical forest in Africa a troop of gorillas is in the midst of their daily activities when a twig snaps in the brush. Immediately, all the other gorillas look to the "silverback" –[...]
Now, more than ever before
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of[...]
Leadership has always been hard
As the year 1776 drew to a close, the American experiment was in trouble. In recent months the Colonial forces had suffered much at the hands of the British troops and Hessian mercenaries. They had[...]
Level 5 failure
In Good to Great, Jim Collins researched and codified a surprising fact: that leadership matters a great deal in taking organizations from good to great. He said that good-to-great leaders seemed to come from a[...]
The Organizational Hunger Games
In the movie, The Hunger Games, North America has been destroyed by some unknown apocalyptic event and the nation of Panem exists in its place. Pamen consists of a wealthy Capitol and twelve surrounding, poorer[...]