Rita Gunther McGrath News

...let's bring in Rita McGrath. The Columbia Business School professor says too many organizations are trying to solve today's complex problems with outdated methods. In short, they're trying to predict their way out of an unpredictable situation. "One of the dilemmas we all face," McGrath said at the 2012 DigitalNow Conference in Orlando, "is that we are trying to grapple with truly complex systems by using tools and frameworks that were design"d for more simple, more linear systems."

So what do we need to do? Three things...to read the entire post at CPA Success, click here, and to view the interview, click here.

Posted: Monday, April 30, 2012

Rita McGrath in an interview with Washington Post about the appointment of its new CEO, Scott Thompson, is quoted as follows:

"My advice to Thompson is that you've got everyone’s attention, but now you have to tell them what's next," she said. "The difficulty is step two. It has to be the articulation of a pretty clear go-to for employees, who’ll say: 'You've built the case for change. We know we need to change. But, boss, where are we going?'" McGrath recommended that Thompson take a cue from Nokia chief executive Steven Elop, who emerged with solid short-, middle- and long-term plans after writing a now infamous memo last November telling the mobile company that its platform was "burning."

To read the entire interview, click here.

Posted: Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Bloomberg Business Week discusses why Cerberus Capital Management would buy AT&T's Yellow Pages and quotes Rita McGrath:

Rita McGrath, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, explained last month that while private equity investors often look for companies they can turn around, that probably isn’t what drew them to the Yellow Pages. Instead, they may be hoping to earn a decent return on their investment as the business shrinks. “This one is like a cash register—it just dribbles out on an ongoing basis,” she said. McGrath likened it to individual investors having a CD in their portfolio.

To read the entire article, click here.

Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Build Network blog discusses in detail Rita McGrath's article in the European Financial Review entitled Finding Opportunities in Business Model Innovation.

Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012

At Social Innovation blog:

Discovery driven planning is a distinct and unique paradigm of business development. It provides an alternative means of business development in an environment marred with uncertainty. Many new ventures that begin in such climates fail because the basic tenants of the business are assumed to be correct even though there is no historical precedent against which these tenants can be compared. I prefer to look at discovery driven planning as a means of giving the social entrepreneur tools when vying for market space and fiscal sustainability. In some respects I feel it is working a bit backwards.

Traditionally, one builds a business model with projections of ultimate returns based upon the model. The entrepreneur then judges the ultimate success or failure of the organization by how it fared in contrast to projections. When using discovery driven planning, the ultimate goal is to spend as little as possible while attaining the largest informational and experiential returns. The entrepreneur also begins at the end in terms of social impact and returns and works backwards through building the organization. It is a model of perpetual experimentation, trial and error, and exploration that could prove very valuable.

The techniques used in discovery driven planning facilitate ongoing information attainment and could help in the creation of an organization that is strategically placed, competitive, and purposeful with credible milestones and salient direction. This can save a social start up tremendous losses because the venture begins by thinking about its bottom line in terms of social impact and revenues.