Over at the HBR blog, there is a terrific article entitled "Why Most New Product Launches Fail" which offers a fascinating perspective on the predictable, and sometimes avoidable, ills that can befall something new. Among… Read more »
Thought Sparks
Failing toward Success at Google
In the latest Harvard Business Review, I made the argument that failures can be useful in that they teach us where our assumptions are wrong, expose dead ends, and generally can give us something of… Read more »
Complimentary webinar on recent HBR article “failing by design” April 19 1pm
Join me in an on-line discussion of the recent HBR article, "Failing By Design." The webinar will help attendees understand the concept of intelligent failure, in which when inevitably, things don't go as you expect, you… Read more »
Quote of the Day from the album KMAG YOYO (which is a rather rude military acronym)
Just bought this album by the irreverent Hayes Carll and laughed out loud at this bittersweet line: "Boy, you're not a poet, just a drunkard with a pen!" Hey, we can't be serious all the time!
Analysts or business designers in today’s strategy work?
A LinkedIn Question went like this: Is business strategy as we teach it in Harvard Case Studies Obsolete? Do we need to develop business designers and not strategic planners? Traditioal strategic planning takes a… Read more »
Humanities Graduates Bring …well…Humanity to Bear at Work
I thought this extremely thought provoking blog post by fellow Harvard Blogger Tony Golsby-Smith was a great reminder that although analytical tools and frameworks can help solve certain kinds of problems, they are hopeless facing other situations…. Read more »
Rita McGrath quoted in Variety!
In a post at Variety.com entitled Fear of failure stifles biz innovation, Rita McGrath is quoted: “Executives hide mistakes or pretend the mistakes were always part of the master plan,” writes Rita Gunther McGrath. “Failures… Read more »
Three Ways to Prioritize a Long List of Ideas
Scott Anthony’s post at Bloomberg.com on prioritizing mentions Rita McGrath: “I generally subscribe to the teaching of Rita McGrath: imagine success, and then ask what would need to be true for success to happen. For… Read more »
Today’s best quote
At some point, business starts to matter – my favorite quote of the day: "I don't want to build relationships. I want to get paid money for doing work."
Prioritization – never an easy thing
Scott Anthony of Innosight wrote a great blog post: 3 ways to prioritize a long list of ideas which provides some good insight into how to start. I'll add to that:: I also try to… Read more »
Rita’s HBR Article on Intelligent Failure – First 100 Readers can download for free
An article that I've wanted to write for years is appearing in this month's Harvard Business Review. It's entitled "Failing By Design" and the first 100 readers who click on this link will be able to… Read more »
What Lynda Gratton has been up to
Lynda is a good friend and a gifted analyst of organizations in the wild. I thought my readers might be interested in her latest news update, which follows: Dear Rita, I’m really excited to update… Read more »