Category: leadership
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Why some innovations take years to come to market
Matthew Syed has a great example of how easy it is for innovative ideas to be frustrated or delayed in his book Rebel Ideas. It’s the story of how the wheeled suitcase came into the world. The wheeled suitcase is one of
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The power of common knowledge in driving change
I liked Ian Leslie’s review (from a few years ago) of the book Rational Ritual, by Michael Suk-Young Chwe, which focuses on an intriguing aspect of ‘common knowledge’ which Ian summarises thus: ‘For everyone to know something is not enough to force
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Why cognitive diversity is a superpower
‘If we are intent upon answering our most serious questions, from climate change to poverty, and curing diseases to designing new products, we need to work with people who think differently, not just accurately. And this requires us to take a step
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The Three Types of Problem in the World (Redux)
In a complex, fast-changing world situational awareness and the ability to understand context in decision-making is all important. A few years back I described an approach to problem definition (originally from education) based on three fundamentally different types of contexts: simple, complicated, and complex.
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The Downside of Sector-Relevant Case Studies
I use a wide range of case studies in workshops and consultancy. They can be really helpful in demonstrating real-world scenarios, exceptional strategies or choices, poor decision-making and disruption. But there’s a problem that we don’t talk enough about. Some leaders and
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Chalkboard decisions
I liked Shane Parrish’s notion of ‘chalkboard decisions‘. These, says Shane, are the kind of decisions that ‘work well in the classroom but not in real life’. The maths may be right but you can still make the wrong decision if you
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High-reaching informality
The best leaders that I’ve worked with and for have typically all had one characteristic in common – what you might call a ‘high-reaching informality’. High-reaching: what I mean by this is that great leaders get the best out of their people