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July 2012 | Global CEOs Turn Lemons into Lemonade
Global CEOs Turn Lemons into Lemonade The CEOs surveyed in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 15th Annual Global CEO Survey 2012 seem intent on making good on the old saying, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. In the survey, CEOs were asked, “…how they see the global economy evolving this year and beyond, and how they expect to…
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June 2012 | Being Private Has its Privileges
Being Private Has its Privileges In an interesting study run by Chief Executive Magazine back in 2006, 90% of CEOs surveyed said they would prefer to run private companies. (click here to read more) But why? It turns out that being private has significant strategic benefits. A case-in-point is State Farm, a mutual insurance company…
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Crowdsource Your Strategy
Crowdsource your strategy? Are you crazy? According to Wikipedia, “crowdsourcing” is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. What if you applied this technique to the development of your strategy? What if you heavily involved the people who are actually going to be responsible for implementing the strategy? Welcome to…
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April 2012 | Red Bull Yourself to be Creative
Red Bull Yourself to be Creative Business performance is sometimes driven by being “clever” or “creative”. Unfortunately, many people think that creativity is an innate ability that a person either has or doesn’t have. Well, there’s good news. Creativity is a skill that can be learned with practice. There seem to be 2 equally valid…
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Behind The Smoke-Screen Of Financial Indices
Behind The Smoke-Screen Of Financial Indices Ever thought, “The Dow is up, so life is good!” So have we. But when you dive a little deeper into the ever-present number, you will question that assumption. “The Dow Jones Industrial Average” sounds simple, but it’s actually a highly specialized number. First, it’s only based on 30…
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Let’s Re-Design the iPod Box!
How Smart We Are! Let’s Re-Design the iPod Box. What if we could go back in time and redesign the box of the 2005 iPod? Want to see the probable results? Click here to watch the story unfold. You have to admit, there was an awful lot of wasted space on the iPod package. Space…
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What Makes Your Company Different?
PriSim recently published an article in CLO Magazine describing ways that companies can develop their tacit knowledge as a competitive business advantage. Click here to see a copy of the article. In the trench warfare of business, what can make a key difference in a company’s success is the quality of employees’ knowledge. And knowledge…
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Name a Cow, Shake a Hand
Name a Cow, Shake a Hand = Better Business Results What do naming a cow and shaking a hand have in common? They both create better results. When you name a cow, and use her name consistently, you get 68 more gallons of milk a year. Click here to read more. And it turns out…
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Ask the Right Questions to Get the Best Answers
Ask the Right Questions to Get the Best Answers Leaders should never be afraid to “ask the dumb questions” (click here to read a classic on the topic that is used in all PriSim classes). But some questions about a company’s strategy are more important than others. Peter Drucker, through his nonprofit Leader-to-Leader Institute, said…
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Good Things Sometimes Come to Companies That Try But Fail
Good things (sometimes) come to companies that try but fail Remember New Coke? After launching the new formula based on rave reviews in taste tests, it flopped and was described as “the marketing blunder of the century”. But Coke recovered to even greater consumer loyalty and describes the experiment as a shining example of “taking…