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The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing

Posted on October 29, 2013 by David

I enjoy reviewing books for Strategy+Business as it keeps me up to date with what is happening in business book publishing and forces me to read and pay attention. With my book, The New Ecology of Leadership, out I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Ecology versus Engineering: Why Reverse-Engineered Strategy Is No Better Than A Paint-by-Numbers Kit

Posted on September 3, 2013 by David

Recently there has been a lively discussion on LinkedIn about the similarities and differences between Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean strategy and Michael Porter’s strategic frameworks. What became clear in the debate is that the shared methodology behind both approaches … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged as if arguments, baseball, Blue Ocean, Cirque du Soleil, ecological perspective, implementation, Kim and Mauborgne, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Porter, rationalist delusion, reverse-engineered strategy, strategy | 2 Comments

Is Storytelling a Strategy or a Competency?

Posted on August 27, 2013 by David

Several weeks ago a blog appeared on the Harvard Business Review site entitled “Good Companies are Storytellers. Great Companies Are Storydoers.” In it its author, Ty Montague, outlined the characteristics of a storydoing company: 1. They have a story 2. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged competency, Cynthia Kurtz, deliberate practice, ecology, engineering, feedback, narrative, principles, story, story being, story doing, storytelling, strategy, Ty Montague | Comments Off

Principles and Paradigms: The Debate Continues

Posted on June 11, 2013 by David

Steve Denning, with whom I have jousted in the columns of Forbes, about the nature of management paradigms, recent wrote a blog in HBR in the series leading up to the fifth annual Global Peter Drucker Forum on November 2013 … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Anna Karenina, change, community, complex systems, context, discipline, ecological perspective, embodied cognition, equifinality, Fighting Power, freedom, heuristic, implementation, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Mary Parker Follett, obligations, paradigm, Peter Drucker, practical wisdom, principle, rights, self-discipline, Steve Denning, systems, Tolstoy, van Creveld | 1 Comment

On The Road

Posted on April 30, 2013 by David

Last week was the first of three weeks “on the road” for me in the UK and Europe. I am doing a series of corporate education sessions, and book-related presentations at business schools and management associations. The past week was … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Berkeley Consulting Group, Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce, change, complex systems, Doug Ross, ecocycle, ecological perspective, hunter-gatherer, Ken Starkey, London, London Business School, reform business schools, Square Peg, University of Nottingham Business School | Comments Off

Can Rome be Renewed? It Will Take a Miracle…

Posted on March 12, 2013 by David

Is there such a thing as a disruptive religion? Two thousand years ago Christianity certainly qualified as such. It disrupted the then-ruling establishment, making a clear distinction between those things that belonged to God and those that belonged to Caesar. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged cardinal, change, community, conclave, crisis, destruction, ecological perspective, Hans Kung, hunting dynamics, leadership, means and ends, mission, mountain, narrative, Pope, Promised Land, Roman Catholic Church, Rome, The New Ecology of Leadership, trust, wilderness | Comments Off

Innovation at Yahoo – Where Is the Gemba?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by David

This past week the management news was headlined by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban the firm’s staff from working remotely. Annoyed Yahoo employees quickly leaked the clumsily worded memo from the head of HR. It read in part: … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged change, Clayton Christensen, community, ecosystem, fission-fusion, gatekeepers, gemba, Google, Gore, herder, hunter, hunter-gatherer, hunting dynamics, innovation, leadership, Marissa Mayer, narrative, Yahoo | 2 Comments

Objectivity: The View from Everywhere

Posted on February 26, 2013 by David

I have been working on revisions to my Drucker Challenge Essay so that a version of it can be published in Management Research Review later this year. The reviewers felt that I needed to deal with the implications for management … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged being, Cartesian Management, deliberate practice, Drucker, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, Hubert Dreyfus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mr. Spock, objectivity, phenomenology, Plato, stages of learning, Star Trek, West Churchman | 1 Comment

Clayton Christensen at Davos: An Ecological Perspective on Innovation

Posted on January 29, 2013 by David

When interviewed at the 2013 World Economic Forum in Davos, Clayton Christensen discussed what he has called “The Capitalist Dilemma”. It goes like this: There are basically three kinds of innovation in the economy: empowering, sustaining and efficiency. Empowering (or … Continue reading →