Does your backup plan have your back, or is it holding you back?
“Get rid of your safety net,” says Stephanie Vozza in an article written for Fast Company, in which Vozza proposes that having a backup plan might not always be good for business.
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Developing the right culture for your company can mean the difference between success or failure
Most of us want an organisational culture that “leaves employees engaged, loyal, empowered to innovate and quick to collaborate,” says Adam Gale, writing for Management Today. The problem is, culture is difficult to define and even harder to change.
There’s more to building a successful management team than strategies and directives – people’s feelings come into play too.
Your board members may be good at their particular roles, but when you put any group of people together, emotions will always have an impact. How you choose to deal with them will affect outcomes, says Dr Lola Gershfeld, writing for Chief Executive.
The best strategy in the world will be doomed to failure unless you create the right environment for success.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” says strategist and consultant Thomas Brown, writing for Raconteur. Companies looking to succeed in a constantly evolving digital world will need to reorient their organisation in a way that supports their initiative.
Recent targeting of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure – such as electricity, gas and water supplies – has highlighted the need for improved security of industrial control systems (ICS). Dana Pasquali, writing in DarkReading.com, urges organisations to take immediate action and sets out three priorities.
It seems obvious: happier employees give better service, which increases customer loyalty and leads, in turn, to stronger financial performance.
But blind acceptance of these assumptions can lead you to the wrong strategy.
Your company has its own unique performance drivers and pathways. Understanding the relationships that matter to your firm leads to smarter improvement strategies.
Faced with a complex and important decision, executives spend too little time exploring and extending the options.
Leaders quickly settle on just a couple of alternatives and take only a few criteria into account.
While this approach might work for straightforward problems, you need to expand your decision frame for complex and strategically significant decisions. Here’s how.
Even the most logical proposals for change can be met with suspicion unless executives deliver them with integrity.
But how do you consistently get your message across to your teams in a positive and believable way?
By taking three key steps, leaders can allow their sincerity to shine and have a greater chance of success. Here’s what a “credibility first” transformation model looks like.
Want to replicate the exponential growth rates of firms like Uber and Buzzfeed? You can.
It took Uber just three years from its establishment in 2009 to achieve a valuation of $18.2bn. Within a decade Buzzfeed grew its monthly usership to 200 million with six billion content views.
Follow these six guidelines to send your firm into hypergrowth.
What you do today determines your company’s future. The most successful firms learn to detect, analyse and capitalise on the earliest signs of emerging trends.
Writing for Harvard Business Review, Vijay Govindarajan describes how firms can master "planned opportunism" – a systematic process of detecting and interpreting the first signs of future developments in everything from customer behaviour to technology – and use these insights to reimagine your company’s future.
While no one can foresee the future with 100% accuracy, training your analysts to forecast objectively and work collaboratively can help you stay ahead of the competition.
Want to improve your firm’s position in the market? Start with your relative performance, write Michael Raynor and Derek Pankratz for Harvard Business Review. Knowing…
Innovation isn’t just for startups – established companies can attack new markets too. Incumbent firms operating in mature, saturated markets should use the power of…
“The old geopolitical model is breaking down, but the only thing emerging in its place is crisis,” Ian Bremmer writes in Strategy+Business. Unstable geopolitics and…
Amazon is revolutionising publishing, bookselling and retail; Uber’s smartphone-integrated taxi service threatens established taxi firms in cities around the world; and Airbnb is blindsiding the…
No strategy is ever perfect, says Ken Favaro, writing for Strategy+Business. But it takes great leadership and confidence to recognise this. The author poses two…
Professionals who collaborate with their colleagues on cross-disciplinary work generate more revenue, inspire greater client loyalty and give their firms competitive edge, says Heidi Gardner…
We know a great deal about what strategy is, but very little about how to make strategy work, write Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles…
Competitive advantage is shifting, say Thomas N. Hubbard, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi, writing for Strategy+Business. The new industry leaders are leaner and more focused…
Chinese companies can teach the West responsiveness, flexibility, improvisation and speed, say Thomas Hout and David Michael, writing for the Harvard Business Review. China’s economy…
Learn to use your emotions and you will be a better negotiator, writes Shirli Kopelman for the HBR Blog Network. Many people fear acknowledging emotions…
Marketing and IT will need to work better together if they want to generate big revenue from big data. Big data necessitates a “marriage of…
Is it possible to invest in tomorrow without damaging performance today? Ken Favaro, writing for Strategy+Business, looks at short-term/long-term tension and how to get over…
Weak markets are not a valid excuse for a company’s slow growth, write Kasturi Rangan and Evan Hirsh for Strategy+Business. With the right market proposition,…
Adopting a new management practice could give your company competitive edge and boost performance. But, warns Julian Birkinshaw, writing for Harvard Business Review, leaders should…
The late, great management guru Peter Drucker famously commented that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. As Ken Favaro points out, writing for Strategy+Business, the quote…
According to Lynn Russo Whylly, writing for ChiefExecutive.net, ignoring or missing a major consumer trend or behavioural shift can seriously damage a brand’s chances of…
Competing on the basis of low prices is commonplace. But price wars are more than just trying to get an edge, observes Patrick Reinmoeller, writing…
When innovation initiatives succeed, leaders immediately want more. While this is encouraging for innovation teams, it presents them with the dual challenge of scalability and…
Leaders can miss growth opportunities because they are so far removed from the many day-to-day processes carried out in their organisations they lead, observe Jeremy…
Strategic thinkers are shown to be the most highly effective leaders in multiple studies, observes Robert Kabacoff, writing for the HBR.org Blog Network. So given…
A Gartner survey in 2013 found that 64% of enterprises were either deploying or planning big data projects. However, writing for the HBR.org Blog Network,…
Writing for Strategy+Business, Jon Katzenbach observes that a disruptive event can cause people to change behaviours immediately. However, he also points out that it will…
Every business leader needs help at some time in their career. A view from an outsider can throw a new light on a tricky problem,…
Online reviews and other sources of peer-to-peer information are a significant and growing force in consumer choices and spending decisions. However, writing for Harvard Business…
The majority of businesses fail to grow, observes Verne Harnish, writing for Fortune. But although most are only small ventures, unlikely to become the next…
Strategy is important, as every executive knows. But some are frightened by it because it requires them to make decisions that cut off other possibilities…
Should you reward your existing customers for their loyalty, or spend your marketing budget on attracting new business? This is the dilemma explored by Jiwoong…
Big data has been hyped to such an extent that companies now expect it to deliver more than it actually can, according to Jeanne W.…
Writing for Management Today, John Spencer points out one of the economic puzzles of recent years: the decline in the rate of productivity growth. Spencer…
You might think you have a customer-driven strategy, but it’s not always obvious who your most important customers are. Writing for Harvard Business Review, Robert…
Think of a powerful company and it’s likely to have an equally powerful logo. Examples include the golden arches of McDonald’s, Starbucks’ mermaid and the…
Writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, Christine Crandell discusses why some companies successfully innovate and others don't. Crandell argues that high rates of failure for new products…
Entrepreneurs often devote a lot of time to their initial business idea, as well as the figures involved. But all too often, little time is…
In Harvard Business Review, Eric Janszen considers the current economic climate and discusses the challenge of selling to debt-averse consumers. As the author points out,…
Money might not be the great motivator it is generally believed to be. That is the shock conclusion of a book by best-selling author Daniel…
Mission-driven companies come under the spotlight in an entry for Harvard Business Review's Blog Network by Michael V. Russo. As he points out, many modern…
With the business environment now relying heavily on digital technology for communication, the importance of face-to-face management is emphasised by Jerry S. Wilson at Businessweek.com.…