There was a time when you’d reach a certain age and your teeth would begin to rot and fall out. You would make the dreaded trip to the dentist, get into the torture-device-like chair, and look into the stadium grade light hanging from the ceiling....
The cautionary tale that the record industry presents us with is only one example of how technological advancements have made the old management methods obsolete. Very few industries are safe from the threat posed by hyper competition. Barriers to entry are now almost nonexistent for...
Frankly put, your company doesn’t innovate because your workplace culture sucks. As a management consultant working with some of the best and worst companies in the world, I have discovered that the very system of community that holds a company together is left forgotten. The...
I have been involved in the area of innovation for more than 25 years, both as an innovation strategist and as an inventor. About a decade ago, “innovation” became the new buzzword, like “synergy” or “solutions” or “value added.” Major consulting firms took advantage by...
When I speak around the country, and I proclaim the most dangerous thing that a company can do is focus on risk, the response I get is shocking. There’s a warm, comfortable feel to risk management in corporations today, and that comfort is a manifestation...
As the widely quoted axiom holds: “The biggest cause of failure is the fear of failure.” It’s an unbelievable cosmic truth that so many forget. Fear is the most insidious of all human emotions. Yet, organizations often try to use fear as a tool of...
“Would the Apple iPod have ever gotten through your new product development process? If the answer is “no,” the process is probably too risk adverse and cumbersome; it should be scrapped and reinvented, “zero-based” style. If the answer is “yes,” then your process has the...
In my consulting practice I help my clients license technologies. I have found that in the medical market, oftentimes the person in charge of evaluating new technologies is not compensated for bringing in new profitable technologies – but they’re punished if they bring in a...
As a management consultant, I can almost walk into a building and look at the physicality of the people that work there – the expressions on their faces – and I can tell you almost instantly what kind of organization they are. In fact, study...
Risk management may be the “great divide” that separates styles of innovation management and, for that matter, styles of management in general. Indeed, it’s often the risk management part of the corporate playbook that separates true innovation results from mere activity and, ultimately, success from...
