Stephanie Overby, Maurice Schweitzer

People automatically associate input related to quantity (how long it takes to make a car) with output quality (how well it performs). While in many cases, input information does directly correspond to outcome, in some cases it does not. Yet humans are hardwired to automatically associate input and output. And people can prey on your input bias, causing you to make poor decisions or judgments … [ Read more ]

Howard Gardner

When I say story or narrative, I have a pretty elaborate definition. There has to be a protagonist. There have to be goals. There have to be obstacles people can identify with. There has to be an ultimate resolution—hopefully a positive one. It’s not the same as having a message or a vision or a slogan. It’s a more encompassing, realistic, enveloping thing.

Howard Gardner

There are three factors involved in resistances: age, emotion and public stance. First of all, the longer your neural networks have been running one way, the harder it is to rewire them. Unfortunately, that’s just a fact of life. Number two, the things that you feel very strongly about emotionally are the hardest to change your mind about. And three, particularly for people who are … [ Read more ]

Howard Gardner

I don’t believe behavior change lasts unless people’s minds change voluntarily. I’m interested in leadership that’s overt and mind-changing that’s intentional.

Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor

Only if managers define market segments that correspond to the circumstances in which customers find themselves when making purchasing decisions can they accurately theorize which products will connect with their customers. We believe that customer segmentation (or categorization) should be based on the notion that customers “hire” products to do specific “jobs.” Doing so will help managers segment their markets to mirror the way their … [ Read more ]

How to Spot a Failing Project

Usually, when an IT project fails, management is the last to know. But eventually, like a fish left too long in the refrigerator, the failure becomes all too obvious. When the situation reaches that point, your only option is the IT equivalent of pulling everything out of the refrigerator and scrubbing it out with baking soda.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Conventional wisdom … [ Read more ]

Should You Get an MBA?

The pressure is on IT leaders to prove their business savvy, and job postings are asking for an MBA. Do you really need one to make it as a CIO? We asked two IT executives for help assembling arguments for and against pursuing the degree.

Clayton Christensen

…Customers-people and companies-have “jobs” that arise regularly and need to get done. When customers become aware of a job that they need to get done in their lives, they look around for a product or service that they can “hire” to get the job done. This is how customers experience life. Their thought processes originate with an awareness of needing to get something done, and … [ Read more ]

Clayton Christensen

Like it or not, although market researchers often develop a solid understanding of the jobs that customers are trying to do, the primary language through which the nature of the opportunity must be described in the resource allocation process is the language of market size. Asking marketers to understand this concept is not the solution to the problem-because whether it is called “marketing myopia” or … [ Read more ]

Secrets of Offshoring Success

Even as offshore outsourcing has matured, best practices have been few. Now two top academics reveal the principles that should guide CIOs.

The New Science of Change

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get people to alter the way they do things. New research reveals why it’s so hard and suggests strategies to make it easier.

Competitors’ Guidelines

Is competition within your company healthy? It can be. Here’s how to highlight its benefits and minimize its risks.

Joseph Badaracco

Careers are shaped by decisions. But some decisions have more than one perfectly reasonable answer. An ethics expert has advice on making management choices you can live-and succeed-with.

Increase the Success of Your Knowledge Transfer Effort

Knowledge transfer is one of the first tasks of transitioning to an outsourced model, but it’s sometimes overlooked or under-planned, resulting in a shaky start to the relationship. Here’s how to do it right.

A New IT Value Vocabulary

After nearly 18 months of work by dozens of CIOs, the IT Value Matrix illustrates the principles and practices essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT’s value to the enterprise. One reader’s praise: “In my daily job which is communicating what technology does for our business partners, our wins, project release status information and creating presentations for executives that mean something to our business partners, … [ Read more ]

Deciding How to Decide

Good decisions arise from constructive conflict. Here’s how to use debate to build a sound decision-making structure. Excerpted from Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer.

The Key to Innovation: Overcoming Resistance

You should be investing less time in brainstorming good ideas and more time in targeting the sources of resistance to change.

Lonely At The Top

Congratulations! You’re the new boss. And your former colleagues don’t like it.

Michael Schrage

Nothing in the business world is more overrated than a “good idea.” Nothing. I’ve never gone into an organization anywhere in the world that didn’t have-with a little prompting and encouragement-more good ideas than it could possibly use. Indeed, most firms enjoy a surplus-a glut-of good ideas. As a rule, a glut of something makes it less valuable, not more. Economics 101.

By contrast, I’ve never … [ Read more ]

Michael Schrage

Grasping the essence of an innovation culture is astonishingly easy. Simply fill in the blank. Whenever a good idea is proposed, you’ll find the core values of an innovation culture in the words that follow this common phrase: “We can’t do that because…”

Whatever reasons, excuses and evasions people use to explain away why good ideas can’t be implemented is the organization’s innovation culture. Period. We … [ Read more ]