Dear colleagues: I just got used to the idea of not saying “Happy new year” and here it is, February. It’s been fun so far – I returned to teaching in person on campus in… Read more »
Articles
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – November 2021
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – August 2021
Dear colleagues, Welcome to the monthly newsletter, with a wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks and some things to watch out for in September. If you’d like to get the weekly Thought Sparks delivered right… Read more »
We need to talk about five mechanisms to avoid future catastrophe.
Humans are surprisingly adaptive creatures – many of the changes wrought by the pandemic would have been unthinkable in an earlier era. And yet, we’re also remarkably blind to changes happening right under our noses. … Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – July 2021
Dear Colleagues, Welcome to the monthly wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks newsletters. A no-nonsense guide to measuring innovation mastery (July 6, 2021) What is it like to work in an organization that has attained… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – June 2021
Dear Colleagues, We’re changing things up a little with the RMG newsletter! I’ll be summarizing my weekly Thought Sparks and pointing you to other useful resources as we go, Not Buying It – When your biggest… Read more »
Focus and the Mission Driven Organization; It Doesn’t Have to be So Hard
Nonprofit organizations are expected to deliver results on multiple fronts. The result can be a nightmare for prioritization. A simple framework that spells out the tradeoffs between mission, resources, advantages and impact can help sort… Read more »
The Inside Baseball of Corporate Transformation
Rita McGrath and Ron Boire Hired to transform a company? The odds are against you A recent McKinsey global survey found that only 26% of executives they questioned considered their efforts to address specific performance… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 3: So Many Policies, So Little Space!
Welcome to part 3 of a three-part series, looking at the likelihood of a fundamental transformation of the basic social contract in the United States, along the lines of Roosevelt’s New Deal. D x V… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 2: Reaching for a Vision
Welcome to part 2 of a three-part series, looking at the likelihood of a fundamental transformation of the basic social contract in the United States, reflecting Roosevelt’s New Deal. The framework combines two uncertainties to… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 1: Defining the Issues
Back in March of 2020, I applied the techniques from “Seeing Around Corners” to what kind of economic and social future we might anticipate post-pandemic. One of the scenarios I outlined was a return to… Read more »
What Now? The Board Agenda for 2021
“What’s next” is the question on everyone’s mind. The reality is, we don’t – and can’t – know for sure. What we can do is articulate our best hypotheses and assumptions and then pay close… Read more »