What Will the Future Hold? City Sprawl & Systems Dynamics
Instead of extending the current design-for-the-car into the future, we could shift the key variables of the current system and design a future that empowers environment and citizen mobility. In early 2017, we became homeowners and moved to our new home right after my...
What’s Changing?
Many leaders in organizations acknowledge that change is a constant. Nevertheless, only a small number of those leaders really understand the magnitude of the change happening around them. For that reason, we feel that in any discussion of leading change or strategic...
Qualities of Leading Innovators: On Developing People
If one is to explore the characteristics of a person who effectively leads innovation, then it would be natural to discuss leadership styles. Which one is it? In writing this last post on leading innovators, servant leadership as a style to describe these great...
Qualities of Leading Innovators: On Networks
The primary unit of innovation is not the individual. Instead, it is the network that extends inside and outside [the organization]. –Making Innovation Work, Davila, Epstein & Shelton The previous post about leading innovators may make a reader believe that the...
Qualities of Leading Innovators: On Effects
This is the second post in a series of four exploring the qualities of leading innovators. On the first post, we explored how leading innovators find and act on opportunities. If you remember, I gave you “homework.” And if you did it, you probably felt liberated by...
Qualities of Leading Innovators: On Opportunities
Leading innovators are leaders who have demonstrated common qualities in successfully achieving breakthrough innovations that have changed their organizations, and in some cases, the world. Across several countries and industries, leading innovators have exhibited...
Simple Innovations: Where to Start?
“Any seemingly grand idea can be divided into an infinite series of smaller, previously known ideas.” –Scott Berkun, The Myths of Innovation John—not really his name but to protect the “innocent”—a co-worker of mine many years ago, taught me a quick lesson on...
The “funny” paths of change: Disrupting education
Mobile and other technologies will continue to intensify the competition challenging education's conventional delivery platforms and methods. Several years ago, many doubted the prospects of online education. The claims that a quality education could best be achieved...
Culture or Climate: Where Do I Start?
"The mistake that distorts aiming and clouds leadership action is that many leaders confuse climate with culture." A few weeks ago a good friend and leader highlighted to me some good points about his problems with addressing culture in his firm. First, he noted the...