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Business Simulations as Leadership Observation Labs
A quote often attributed to Plato states, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” And when the play takes place within the serious gaming of business simulations, the discoveries and insights can be extremely useful in leadership development. Business simulations provide a fast-moving backdrop…
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What? You also want PROFITS with that Innovation?
Being an innovative company is pretty exhilarating. But so are profits, and if you’re the CEO of a public company you’d better figure out how to balance both – or risk losing your job. A recent Forbes article presents a cautionary tale of harmonizing the two using GE as a case study. Customers want new…
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Wall Scorecards
According to Covey’s The 4 Disciplines of Execution, the third discipline of business plan execution is KEEP A COMPELLING SCOREBOARD. From page 13 of their book, “Discipline 3 is the discipline of engagement. In principle, the highest level of performance always comes from people who are emotionally engaged and the highest level of engagement comes…
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Best Buy is Still In Business. How is That Even Possible?
The last decade was brutal to the U.S. consumer electronics retailing industry. Several well-known companies failed, including Circuit City, Radio Shack, and Brookstone. And with the entrance of giant discounters CostCo and WalMart together with Amazon into the market space, success in the industry has become even more difficult to achieve. Yet against all odds,…
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Fake News? Generational Differences in Business
Ever feel like you don’t fit neatly into your assigned Gen X/Boomer/Millennial generational cohort? Rather than forcing people into their generational boxes, some researchers are now saying the boxes should just be thrown away. Identifying generational attributes and statistically validating them has turned out to be very difficult, with reliable data sets either scarce or…
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10K Analysis of a Real Company
Finance, the language of business, can be confusing and intimidating. We have found that exposing participants to a complex financial exercise through a business simulation enables them to become comfortable speaking this language. In addition to the simulation exercise a simple 10K analysis helps to solidify the financial concepts practiced during a business simulation. These…
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Migrating Financial Metrics
Financial reporting and analysis can sometimes seem static and inflexible. But in reality, the field does change and evolve – even if slowly. For example, General Motors recently announced that it would no longer report monthly auto sales, an age-old financial metric in the auto industry. Saying the measure no longer tracks a meaningful aspect…
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Tips and Tricks for the High-Wire Act of Running a Live Webinar
Delivering a live webinar to people who aren’t in your immediate family can strike fear into the heart of the most seasoned presenter. It’s lonely, it’s unforgiving, and it’s usually being recorded for ongoing scrutiny by your evil colleagues, your boss, and your customers. And thanks to technology, it’s almost certain that as a business…
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Moat-ology and Competitive Advantage: Buffett vs. Musk
Elon Musk, one of the original founders of PayPal among other accomplishments, has taken the gloves off in his comments about Warren Buffett’s principle of business “moats”. While Buffett has famously said that “wide sustainable moats” such as pricing, distribution networks, and branding lead to sustainable advantage, Musk has countered saying that competitiveness today is…
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Your Company’s Shrinking Life Expectancy
The life expectancy of a US company is becoming shorter and shorter, according to a new study by The Boston Consulting Group. At the same time, the possibility of being out of business within 5 years, either through bankruptcy or a merger or acquisition, is becoming greater and greater. These facts should motivate a sense…