January 2012
3 posts
“I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through...”
– Be lucky - Telegraph (via themadeshop)
Don't Let Your Idea Get Lost In Translation
Two people fail with innovation projects. One motivates employees with an eccentric, colorful style but receives no funding to expand his efforts. The other easily convinces the chief executive to invest heavily in innovation – yet gains no support from employees who ignore her ego-driven calls for ideas.
Speaking one language is not enough. The first is only fluent in the language of the front...
December 2011
15 posts
We are an inter-dependent species.
We are an inter-dependent species. We cannot do a thing without others. Just possibly you could survive alone on fruit on a tropical island, but it would not be pleasant, and even here your education and upbringing will influence how you can keep your wits about you. In every other situation we need others: teachers, farmers, suppliers, capitalists, workers, pupils, house-builders, refuse...
Purpose is a Turning Point
We will need unshrunk people. We will need those who have a purpose beyond mechanically increasing production. That requires personal decisions leading to personal purpose. And purpose is a crucial turning point.
Here are some practical suggestions to unshrinking yourself:
BECOME ONE PERSON We need to stop wearing all of those hats, playing all those roles, and thinking that one ability or...
It's a Trust Crisis (Not a Debt Crisis)...
Do we need truth telling and living by the truth? What happens in a world where we cannot even assume that others will keep their promises and give accurate accounts of events? How do we behave differently when others are likely to be self-serving liars, cheats, and thieves?
If our society was less honest its progress and pace would slow. The evidence is there to see in each country that is less...
We Need Truth Telling Rebels...
We need people who are capable of speaking up against the majority view, just as we need people who can support and stay loyal[i]. The two should exist for the same purpose: the betterment of society and the world. Whistle blowing is a vital role that brings openness and scrutiny to illegal, ineffective, dangerous, and unjust situations.
In one such incident, Stephen Bolsin, professor and...
It doesn't have to be this way...
Any idea what you want? Perhaps you can see it exactly. Perhaps you can almost feel, taste, see, and smell it. Maybe you are living the life you always wanted. It’s just about possible that you still have no real, clear picture of what you want your life to be. It’s also possible that you have not yet figured out how what you are doing relates to what you want.
It is wise to take notes of the...
The Importance of Valuing Difference
Instead of valuing differences, we often find bullying. How much is bullying costing us? How many of us have suffered the consequences of bullying? That constant, “nit-picking, criticism of a trivial fault that is distorted, misrepresented, and added to with fabrication, those attempts to undermine you, being singled out and treated differently, being ignored, patronised, overloaded, humiliated,...
1 tag
What kind of intelligence do you need?
What kind of intelligence do you want? IQ is just a measure of a particular kind of efficiency in brain design. That’s important for doing IQ type tasks but what happens when you want to complete a task that IQ doesn’t measure?
Howard Gardener[i] is among many who have examined what he termed ‘multiple intelligence’. His first attempt identified seven ‘intelligences’ that contribute to our...
It's a Confidence Class Thing...
We looked at a book called Smart Luck recently to look at the life histories of some entrepreneurs. It was notable that a lot of them were near the top or the bottom of what we would call our class hierarchy and our class culture (if we had one!).
In the book, there is the example given of Simon Woodruff who launched a chain of sushi bars in London. He said something really interesting in an...
November 2011
2 posts
Reacting is as important as Planning
Young Ingvar Kamprad used unexpected cash from his father – a gift for good exam results - to found IKEA. He lived near furniture makers so reacted by selling furniture. He reacted to a boycott from local rivals by producing his own furniture.
Kamprad’s first designer reacted to not being able to fit a table in a car by creating the first flat pack. Then Kamprad reacted to his showroom...
October 2011
7 posts
Nothing is Fixed
In Jim Collin’s latest book, Great by Choice, he wants to sell us seven characteristics that allow his seven chosen companies to become great over a decade competing in chaotic markets. In just one example, using data prior to 2002 he dismisses Apple and praises Microsoft as one of his hero companies. Even now, with the evidence clear that Jobs had a better subsequent decade than Ballmer, Collins...
Plan B Matters Most
The Rooney Rule is beautiful. It is perfectly adapted to its purpose. Back in 2002, there were just two black head coaches from thirty two teams in the whole National Football League. This was despite more than 70% of the players in the NFL being black.
If the league wanted to change the situation, it would have been impossible to insist that a certain percentage of head coaches were black because...
15 tags
Strategy For The Common People
Many leaders fail to inspire because their main skills have been gaining promotion and getting the job. Unlike some of history’s greats, most just don’t have the common touch.
In 1995, Pulp, a British indie band, released what was to prove its most famous single. ‘Common People’ reached Number 2 in the UK and has remained an anthem that explains the difference between...
1 tag
Your Strategic Self...
Strategy is about shaping the future. But planning doesn’t always work in the real world. That’s the reason for this book – to help you to use strategy to figure out what to do now to get what you really want later. This book can help make strategy work more often.
There are strategy tools and processes that can help – but the real heart of strategy is the strategist. It’s what you know, how you...
September 2011
10 posts
“My God, a strategy book that actually makes sense? Imagine that… Most...”
– Professor Alf Rehn, author of Dangerous Ideas, internationally active speaker and consultant, speaking about The Strategy Book by Max Mckeown.
Stupid Survives Until Smart Succeeds
“We were wrong, terribly wrong” wrote Robert S. McNamara thirty years after the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon. “We were wrong” said John Doerr, the Michael Jordan of venture capital, admitting his mistake in turning down Twitter. “We were wrong” explained Edgar Bronfman, boss of Warner Music, accepting the error of going to war with consumers. “We were wrong” claimed Ofra Strauss,...
“You’re not Steve Jobs and your organization is not Apple. And your well-thought...”
– Sriram’s Tumblr: Don’t be so f*king strategic
2 tags
Play Your Own Game
We all play games. Eric Berne, psychologist, founded the school of Transactional Analysis in the 1950’s, as a means of gaining insight into the way in which people relate to each other. He argued that each person is made up of three alter ego states with which we deal with human interactions whether as agent, the person sending a message, or the respondent, who receives, and responds to, the...
Hierarchy is Fossil Fuel
“This year we at Sony have been flooded, we’ve been flattened, we’ve been hacked and we’ve been singed…but the summer of our discontent is behind us” declared the Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer.
In 2011, this giant, multi-billion-dollar electronics and entertainment corporation had been beset by problems. There was natural disaster, unnatural competition, and social unrest. And leaderless,...
Great Innovations Deserve Great Names
In 1939, two physicists announced what they called a ‘gravitationally completely collapsed object’. The world yawned. Forty years later, when a lecturer commented that it deserved a better name, a member of the audience suggested renaming it a ‘Black Hole’. The name stuck. This time the world woke up and the name became part of our working vocabulary.
The name given to an innovation matters. A...
Adaptability :: The Art of Winning
A social group, nation, team, community or corporation, that can deliberately, methodically, even joyously renew itself has an “adaptive” culture — one that delivers that much sought-after competitive advantage or simply a winning position for itself.
Simply by shortening the cycles of renewal or innovation through experimentation, such a culture will naturally find better alternatives....
August 2011
24 posts
7 tags
Always (Another) Way To Win
If you are getting whipped playing by the existing rules, get used to losing or change the game. If you can’t win by standing and fighting then run and hide. If you can’t win by being big, be small. If you can’t win by being small, be big. The first rule of winning is that there is no one way to win.
The Ancient Greek poets described the monstrous Hydra with more heads than...
Get Your Ducks In A Row
People rarely just buy an innovation – they buy everything that goes with the innovation. Usually, they buy a system. They also buy into the future of that system. They judge what other people will buy and what other suppliers will do to support particular products. Unsupported innovation may not be worth buying.
Companies supporting the system also have choices. They choose what is good for them...
4 tags
What Do You Want? What Do You Wish For?
What do you want? Could a stranger know from observing the way you spend your time and energy what you really want and what you merely wish for?
Make it clear to your boss! Tell him or her that over the long term, nice people, nice companies, good people, good companies do better, make more money, and create more wealth than nasty, bad people and companies. It’s a fact. The ethical indices created...
14 tags
“Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that...”
– Robert F Kennedy, Speech in 1968
Life Comes First...
It is wise to take notes of the hero’s words in the cult film, The Princess Bride. He speaks to his true love, “Life is pain! Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.”
Changing, unshrinking, improving, overcoming self-defeating behaviour, altering long held but false prejudice and forgiving, all require real effort, even pain. This is not a popular idea. In our world, the only...
5 tags
15 tags
People Judge You First, Then Your Idea
Your boss doesn’t need life complicating. She’s under pressure. He’s busy. She’s got deadlines. He has objectives. Your manager has a family. A schedule. Your boss has a boss. Head honchos who are stressed, busy, hit by deadlines, and under pressure to meet objectives. You want them to say ‘yes’ to your idea. But, it’s always going to be easier to say ‘no’.
Only about 1% of proposed ideas are...