Year: 2014

Fast Future! Both the Future (And the Book) are Coming Soon!

Dec 8, 2014adminBusiness Improvement, Operations, Planning

This week we’ve completely finished our book Fast Future! Ten Uber-Trends Changing Everything in Business and Our World, and the final manuscript is off to the publisher (Advantage Media Group, Charleston, SC http://advantagefamily.com). I am excited and proud of this project, and hope you’ll look for the book’s release in a few weeks. It’s been a challenging and rewarding (and exhausting) journey. Many, many folks have asked me about the book – why I did it, how did it – and why a book about the future? This is a project now several years in the making, which grew originally […]

The Real, Extraordinary Cost of Misalignment

Aug 6, 2014adminBusiness Improvement, Operations, Planning

Have you at times wondered just how much waste there is in your firm – in particular the extra costs associated with staff misunderstanding, misalignment, missed collaboration – and occasionally even open warfare? I do, because I see it each and every day in organizations both small and large, niche-focused and broadly diversified, well-run and not so well-run. Or flip to the positive and consider this: in almost all firms with sustained success, you’re going to find an extraordinarily high level of alignment around the stuff that really matters: mission, vision, values, strategy, and culture. Here in New England today […]

It’s Summer – 90 Days to Firm Fitness!

Jun 2, 2014adminBusiness Development, Business Improvement, Operations, Planning

This time of year the magazine racks and online health sites are chock-a-block full of advice on how you can get yourself (and your body) ready for the summer beach season. [A lifetime of bad choices can be reversed in just five minutes a day]. Yes, it’s a tired cliché. But it’s also true that as the weather warms up, we soon turn our attention to the out-of-doors, and the external motivation of looking good at the pool or on the course. Similar thing with the company. Now nearly at the year’s midpoint, it’s a good time to reflect on just […]

The Olympian Effort and Our Work

Feb 28, 2014adminBusiness Improvement, Leadership Development, Operations, Planning

Some people have no interest in the Olympics – but I’m not one of them. Instead, every four years I am again drawn into the spectacle, captured by the storylines, caught up in the competition for a fortnight. I’m not exactly sure why this is, or why I invest my attention watching sports I know (and care) nothing about. (I can’t imagine planning a normal Saturday afternoon of watching the biathlon, speed-skating, or (yikes!) ice dancing. But with the Olympics, I did all of them. This week I’ve wondered whether this experience says anything about work – our organizations, our […]

Time to Change the Game?

Feb 15, 2014adminBusiness Improvement, Leadership Development, Operations, Planning

Imagine that you’re running in a race (a marathon) and doing well. You’re at least four miles ahead of your nearest competitor, and with only a half a dozen miles to go. Things look pretty good. But then (all at once) you’re passed, by someone bounding along at nearly twice your speed – on some sort of high-tech, futuristic springy shoe-thingys. And then she is gone. Or imagine the opposite: you’re running the same race, but now it’s you that is more than ten miles behind, and with only a couple left. It’s clear that, as long as things stay […]