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Those Who “Did” May Be Best at Leading Those Who “Do”
Those Who “Did” May Be Best at Leading Those Who “Do” The results are in: professional U.S. basketball teams have a higher winning percentage when their coach is a former brilliant player. And this halo-effect is substantial (six extra places up the league table) and quick (visible in the first 12 months of such a…
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Pay for Performance Gone Wild
You’ve probably read about Transocean’s recent safety-bonus faux pas. In what seems to be a case of positive incentives gone wrong, executives at the offshore drilling company were actually awarded bonuses for safety performance in 2010. This despite the fact that the company’s April 2010 British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 workers and…
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What if You Said “No” to More Good Ideas?
What if You Said “No” to More Good Ideas? Everyday it seems we hear complaints from business decision-makers about overlapping and overwhelming priorities. Everything seems to be a priority, and the pressure is on to get it ALL done, whether it’s truly mission-critical or not. Is it time to eliminate more goals and focus your…
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February 2011 | What if Your Top Competitor Slipped?
February 2011 What if Your Top Competitor Slipped? Suppose for a minute you are a U.S.-based company that produces pet food or drywall or children’s toys. Tomorrow morning, you open the newspaper and you see a headline about one of your fiercest competitors linked to dangerous pet food, toxic drywall, or lead-paint used in children’s…
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A WikiLeaks World
Covering your assets in a wikileaks world We’ve all heard about Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief at WikiLeaks. Not too long ago, he published classified government documents and exposed toxic waste in Africa, Scientology manuals, and even water-boarding procedures. Some want to see him as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Others want to see him…
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December 2010 | Your Company’s Achilles’ Heel
December 2010 What is your company’s Achilles’ heel – and can you protect it? Shakespeare could not have written a play with more twists and turns than the real-life 2010 hostile takeover bid for Potash, one of the world’s largest suppliers of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Two companies — Australia’s BHP Billiton and Sinochem,…
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New Financial Statements
The new look of financial statements – welcome to the future of accounting In the not too distant future, assets may not equal liabilities, up may become down, black will be white, and night becomes day… Or so it might seem. Get ready – the accounting world as we know it may be turned upside…
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The Value of Older Consumers
Tipping sacred cows for fun and profit. The value of older consumers. It’s official. If you’re older than 46, MOST advertisers are ignoring you. Why? Because conventional wisdom says you are an old bat? Probably. Conventional wisdom (and the ever-wise media) says older consumers wear black socks with Bermuda shorts, hate change, and can’t use…
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Do Nothing?
In the absence of information, do nothing? When information is plentiful, a conscious and deliberate decision to do nothing can be strategic. But what do you do when the future is uncertain and information is scarce? Lack of clarity is the “new normal.” Current market conditions have driven many companies to trade the uncertainty of…
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Complexity is…well…Complicated
Complexity is….well….complicated The Invisible Gorilla psychology experiment (http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html) is interesting because it demonstrates the many ways our brains and our intuitions can deceive us… especially in complex situations. Even more interesting is the fact that approximately half the people watching this video don’t notice the gorilla. In business, this kind of complexity brings an illusion…