Dharmesh Shah

You can’t add simplicity in. You must take complexity out.

Paul J.H. Schoemaker

Most companies promote managers for hitting designated targets rather than for pursing the best process strategy. A good plan which fails is seldom rewarded, even if it had evident merit. But some companies do inculcate a smart process mindset in their culture and try to reward it. […] Has your organization ever given a performance reward for an excellent plan that happened to fail? Although … [ Read more ]

Elevate Your Performance Review Conversations with these 12 Expert Tips

But it doesn’t have to be such a chore. When done well, performance reviews are an incredibly valuable exercise that enables a manager and direct report to track growth over time, align on how the work impacts what matters most to the business, and build a more open and trusting relationship. The conversation should flow both ways — a back-and-forth dialogue, not a lecture.

That’s why … [ Read more ]

A.G. Sulzberger

The most important thing you have to figure out in order to change a company or change the culture of a company is what is not going to change. The reason is that if everything is up for grabs, if you can change literally anything about a company, then the company has no reason for being. For an institution to change, it needs to separate … [ Read more ]

Cracking the growth code: The ten rules of growth explained

Experts behind the rules of value-creating growth discuss how leaders can apply these insights to their growth strategies.

Robert Werner, Henning Streubel, Deborah Lovich,  Joseph Halverson

Instead of asking [executive leadership team (ELT)] members to summarize how they are doing (which usually only yields positive reports), one CEO we know focuses the conversation on “What keeps you up at night?” At executive team meetings, she asks her direct reports to share their biggest challenges. Then as a team ELT members help one another by sharing ways they have successfully overcome such … [ Read more ]

For CEOs, It’s About Time

How CEOs spend their time has an outsized influence on performance, engagement, and company culture.

Jony Ive

A lot of mistakes are made when you frame a problem, because you could already be dismissing 60 percent, 70 percent of the potential ideas.

Teppo Felin, Alfonso Gambardella, Todd Zenger

Theories illuminate paths to value that might otherwise remain unseen. Managers and entrepreneurs who hold the flashlight of theory can avoid the streetlight effect—the human tendency to search only where the light already shines, where things are already evident.

Haruki Murakami

Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.

A CEO’s First 1,000 Days Begins with the First 100

The initial 100 days are a time for boldness and clarity—a time when CEOs can express the purest form of their vision for the company.

  • CEOs should create an integrated narrative that lays out their ambition as well as their plans for transformation, stakeholder management, talent assessment, and communications.
  • In addition to laying out their ambition and plans, they also have an opportunity to step outside their

[ Read more ]

Inside the Black Box Crucial to Megaproject Success

Despite their importance to the global economy, most megaprojects fail to be delivered on budget or schedule. Here’s how managers could improve on that dismal record.

Chris Bradley, Rebecca Doherty

If you can achieve consistent growth, that’s the surest ticket to outperformance, but only 10 percent of companies manage to do that over a decade. Those that can’t should consider a strategy we call “shrink to grow.” This is like pruning back and then growing from there. Over a ten-year period, you may have one or two major dips in your growth that represent large … [ Read more ]

Chris Bradley

Oftentimes, companies think that growth is sacrificial—you have to endure long periods of low profit to generate growth. That is not true. The order is not growth followed by profit; it’s high returns followed by growth. In fact, companies that begin with returns on capital higher than the cost of capital go on to grow at double the rate of those that don’t start out … [ Read more ]

Ron Carucci, Jarrod Shappell

Know what your current organization is and isn’t capable of and what capabilities you need to achieve [a] newly articulated strategy. Unlike competencies, which belong to individuals, capabilities are organizational.

Martin Reeves, Arthur Boulenger, Adam Job

Organizations tend to neglect or downplay the ingenuity component in change initiatives. Leaders often prefer instead a simpler, mechanistic view of the world, which assumes they can easily specify and control actions using project management techniques. Moreover, organizations are often averse to change. Ideas like “breaking the rules” or “reinventing the organization” are less accepted in typical projects—and a departure from the norm will often … [ Read more ]

4 Types of Employee Complaints — and How to Respond

Complaining can have both positive and negative effects on organizational communication. Constructive complaining — or structured opportunities for employees to voice their concerns — offers valuable feedback to improve work processes, products, and services, and thus should be encouraged. Venting and chronic complaining have both advantages and disadvantages for the individual and the group and should be given the right space and time, rather than … [ Read more ]

Jan-Benedict Steenkamp

In order to disrupt your own frame of reference, you have to be willing to treat your accumulated experience as sunk cost, to be discarded as circumstances require. It’s a psychologically difficult thing to do. Moreover, ordinary daily pressures make it difficult to find the time to really think about, and thoroughly analyze, environmental trends. Many people, managers among them, suffer from cognitive myopia, the … [ Read more ]

George Stalk, Jr.

In manufacturing, costs fall into two categories: those that respond to volume or scale and those that are driven by variety. Scale-related costs decline as volume increases, usually falling 15% to 25% per unit each time volume doubles. Variety-related costs, on the other hand, reflect the costs of complexity in manufacturing: setup, materials handling, inventory, and many of the overhead costs of a factory. In … [ Read more ]