Innovation & Change Management

Have you ever thought about why some organizations are more innovative than others? If we looked closely at such companies, I bet we wouldn’t find the answers inside. No, innovation most often comes from outside of a company and therein lies the problem. If you and your team are spending…

Here is another great blog from Andrea Simon. It’s a great example of how a brave leader used a crisis to spur dramatic change. Ever been on a sinking ship? That was the state of Centenary College when Dr. Kenneth L. Hoyt took over as president in 2001. To say…

Here is a guest blog from Andrea Simon. It’s a great follow-up to my blog on learning from Chipotle’s Crisis. How could something called corporate anthology, help Chipotle and other businesses change proactively? Read on, and Andrea explains.  I always enjoy my workshops with CEOs. They teach me a lot…

Last week I picked up the MIT Sloan Management Review Fall 2016 issue while waiting for dinner. I turned to the last page and read an article by Teppo Felin entitled: “When Strategy Walks Out the Door.” What was really important was the need to include employees in both strategy…

The human brain resists change, which in evolutionary terms, is a good thing. Resisting change is a reasonable survival tactic for individuals: repeating tasks we’re familiar with takes less brain energy and has known outcomes, while making changes to one's routine creates a higher short-term risk of mistakes. But for a business, resistance to change…

  The phenomenally successful book, "Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, powerfully teaches business leaders of all stripes how to "go where the profits and growth are and the competition isn’t." As a trained practitioner in Blue Ocean Strategy® who has been working with clients for years on how…

“Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.” Thomas Edison Much of the first 15 years of my career was spent implementing brand new initiatives and cleaning up existing operations. Whether it was improving a department’s effectiveness, implementing new software or combining departments as a result of a merger or…

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.”  Charles Brower or Ovid How do you receive new ideas? Leaders know that ideas…

"...the leader of the past knew how to tell. The leader of the future will know how to ask." Peter Drucker “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein Any type of improvement or…

A few sentences in a recent New Times article about failure particularly struck me: “… (an) unexpected truth about innovation: It is, by necessity, inextricably linked with failure. The path to any success is lined with disasters.” Disaster?! That’s a strong word. Just the thought of it turns my stomach,…