N2Growth Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

You started a company. Missing the turn or making it too late can cause a company to stagnate or implode or can spell the death of the idea; or worse, the idea becomes someone else’s to bring to market without you. The sooner you shift to the needs of the customer, the better for you and your company. Here’s an example.

Delegation 243

Delegation Maturity CEO Execution 243

HR Digest

MAY 3, 2021

As the COVID-19 crisis takes a sharp turn from government to business, the issue of redefining jobs moves up the agenda. Beth Galetti: Amazon is where smart, passionate people come to obsess about customers and innovate on their behalf. Amazon operates like a series of customer-focused start-ups innovating at a fast pace.

Quality 59

Quality Engineering Technology Resources 59

N2Growth Blog

MAY 16, 2010

The truth is that great companies are those which can thrive and prosper in the absence of sophistication. If your company’s long-term business plan requires the acquisition, or retention of the uber employee then your business not only has a risk management issue, but it is likely not scalable.

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Business Model Brand Blog Supply Chain 344

Strategy Driven

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

To find out, it may be worthwhile to make some sharp distinctions between what Big Data driving AI can do, and what it cannot. CEO’s Role- Wisdom and Innovation. The second is to lead innovation. He was the CEO of two New York publishing companies, Tudor and Knightsbridge. About the Author.

CEO 66

CEO Balanced Scorecard Supply Chain Sharpe 66

In the CEO Afterlife

OCTOBER 30, 2011

Years ago I had the displeasure of consulting for a Canadian natural gas company. ” “So is Allstate,” I said to myself. ” The irony in the VP’s response is the fact that this company was poor at customer service. acquired this misguided company. ” For example. Thankfully, Fortis Inc.

Strategy 234

Strategy CEO Marketing Strategy Human Resources 234

Skip Prichard

NOVEMBER 15, 2019

Leo Tilman is the founder of Tilman & Company, Inc. Tactical agility enables employees at all levels to take smart risks, capture opportunities, improvise and innovate as they execute a clear strategy. Would you share an example from an organization doing it right? In our book, we provide numerous examples of agility.

Agility 92

Agility How To Decentralization Morale 92

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 14, 2017

For industries that depend on innovation, sustaining it is a constant challenge. These two actions cost almost nothing compared to vast sums often spent — and arguably, often wasted — on efforts to foster innovation. Yet they have already generated tens of millions of dollars in value for Roivant.

Innovation 9

Innovation Company Incentives Industry 9

The Horizons Tracker

JULY 19, 2020

The pivotal role of the manager emerged from an analysis of several hundred employees at a Nordic company, who were asked the extent they talk about their work with their family, and similarly, how much they talk about their family with their boss. It calls for a less rigid perspective on what is work time, and what is not.

Analysis 69

Analysis Sharpe Reference Stress 69

HR Digest

MAY 2, 2019

"Unleashing Collective Genius" As globalization takes a sharp turn from government to business, the issue of global talent mobility rapidly moves up the agenda. It can help them innovate. The HR Digest: A culture of learning seems to be an integral part of your core company values. It can drive healthy, yet provocative debate.

Resources 40

Resources Human Resources Leadership Pipeline Learning-by-Doing 40

Next Level Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2010

In it, he describes  how real estate investor Sam Zell and his minions destroyed the culture of the Chicago Tribune and other great newspapers in its holding company. After he used the Trib’s own retirement plan as leverage to buy the company, Zell brought in as CEO a former morning zoo style radio shock jock named Randy Michaels.

How To 169

How To Handbook Executive Coaching Case Study 169

Harvard Business Review

JULY 5, 2012

Innovation hurts. Every organization I've observed that's serious about being innovative is filled with people in genuine pain — not just stress or anxiety or deadline pressure, and certainly not discomfort. Ideally, innovators go through pain so their customers and clients won't have to. That shouldn't surprise.

Innovation 14

Innovation Self-aware Resistance Sharpe 14

Skip Prichard

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

You can spend all the time in the world on strategy sessions, competitive plans, innovation , and product development, but it all falls apart if you don’t have the right talent. For example, I analyzed the lifetime prize money won by over 450,000 poker players and over 24,000 ATP tennis players. Hire the Best.

Sports 104

Sports Definition Long-term Quality 104

Women on Business

JANUARY 24, 2011

When all attributes are equal in a competition, the company who gets the contract has a personal connection. Being sharp means being succinct. For example, as a designer/writer, my skills are not well applied to bookkeeping or financial management. The bigger the playing field, the more trust, familiarity, and rapport count.

Press Release 100

Press Release Discount Sharpe Advertising 100

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 18, 2013

Imagine a team at a ski company that's faced with a big problem: When skiers make sharp turns at high speeds, the edges of their skis lift from the snow, causing the skiers to sometimes lose control. The ski company adapted the metal grid idea into its ski design. The team needed to lessen the vibrations of its skis.

Software 8

Software Innovation Sharpe Efficiency 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2016

A recent study by three professors at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management is part of a growing mountain of evidence of the superior and more lasting performance of companies where the founder still plays a significant role as CEO, chairman, board member, or owner or adviser. Set your company up for success.

Company 8

Company Venture Capitalist Long-term Hotels 8

Strategy Driven

MARCH 18, 2011

The conventional wisdom about strategy may be leading your company astray. Achieving coherence requires a sharpness of focus that few companies have mastered. In this unpredictable economy, traditional approaches to strategy are a luxury most companies cannot afford. by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi.

Resources 51

Resources Industry System Strategy 51

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2013

Clients often hire Open Innovation companies like ours when their research and development teams can''t get past — or maybe over is a better word — the way they have always looked, and where they have always looked for solutions. Here''s an example. It went on to solve its problem in a truly innovative way.

Innovation 8

Innovation Open-book Objective Industry 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2013

Jamming has become a popular way to unearth innovations — bringing together people of many different backgrounds to creatively brainstorm around a company's competitive challenges, expressed as "problem statements." Yet although the process is widely hyped, many companies struggle to make them work.

Innovation 8

Innovation Blue Ocean Strategy Brainstorming Participative 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2012

The sharp recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis and the uncertainty created by the 2011 debt crisis have fundamentally reset the world. The real magic is in process innovation. For example, expensive equipment, purchased from world-renowned multinationals is used five times more frequently than in the United States.

Company 12

Company Succession Constraint Sharpe 12

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2011

Here's a company I can be pretty sure you've never heard of: Grace Manufacturing. Microplanes for kitchens now make up 65% of the company's revenue, yet it was a product category completely different from what Grace started out doing, and only got into reluctantly. And so we thought, what can we make that's sharp?".

Sharpe 14

Sharpe Strategy Contract Manufacturing Tools 14

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 16, 2013

Companies need a different process for funding innovative projects. I call this idea "innovation capital markets," and it''s a system that''s a hybrid of venture capital, general capital and corporate budgeting. Innovation capital markets would fund specific innovations vs. entire corporations.

Company 9

Company Budgeting Entrepreneur Innovation 9

Strategy Driven

OCTOBER 26, 2011

The Benevolent Dictator gives you no-nonsense how-to advice and examples that have worked. That’s what will make the difference between a company that might get by and one that is good or even great. Yes, a rifle or laser-sharp approach will take more planning and forethought, but in the end you’ll probably save time and resources.

Bottom-up 50

Bottom-up Sharpe Follow-up Retail 50

Miles Anthony Smith

JUNE 5, 2018

​ For example, the job function I have now, digital marketing , didn’t exist when I left college, and had I focused on other areas without adapting as my career progressed, I might’ve missed my calling in digital marketing. You see, that is part of the mystery of life. It seems like the answer to this should be, “Yes.”

Career 74

Career Advice Succession Learning-by-Doing 74

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2018

For years, companies, universities and nonprofits have researched the reasons why women are less likely to enter STEM field s — and why, once they enter, they face challenges that frequently push them out. In STEM fields, the ideas that spark innovation are currency, markers of exceptional colleagues. PM Images/Getty Images.

Succession 13

Succession Reputation Focus Group Leadership Styles 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 29, 2018

Many companies have soared on the wings of radical ideas, from Polaroid’s instant camera to the sharing economy of firms like Airbnb. That success could have bred complacency , followed by failure, as so often happens in companies across industries. Instead, at Osteria Francescana, success set the stage for further innovation.

Creativity 10

Creativity Sharpe Diversity Wilde 10

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 24, 2017

However, for Airbus CEO Christian Streiff, it was just a brief window before his abrupt departure from the European aircraft company that’s part of the EADS consortium, along with DiamlerChrysler and Aerospatiale-Matra. But conversely, the sharp edges of hard power can wreck a plan. Defining politics. So what is it?

Politics 13

Politics Bureaucracy Long-term Short-term 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 1, 2012

In the mid-90s as CEO of Medtronic, I was concerned about whether we could sustain the remarkable success in innovation that we had enjoyed during the previous 10 years. Christensen and Bower's article offered the counterintuitive notion that great companies fail for the same reasons they initially experience success.

Disruptive Innovation 8

Disruptive Innovation Christensen Telecommunications Incubator 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

For example, this study examining the rivalry between sales and marketing showed that conflicts between managers from these historically warring functions were not driven by interpersonal issues. The seams that connect major functions are where a company’s greatest competitive distinctions lie. What value do we create together?

How To 8

How To Sharpe Operations Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 28, 2016

companies, the guidelines contain helpful (although not entirely novel or innovative) recommendations such as compensating outside directors with stock, giving non-executive directors unfettered access to management, and discouraging the practice of earnings guidance. Intended to strengthen corporate governance at U.S.

CEO 8

CEO Groupthink Sharpe Committee 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2013

And companies that encourage people to respond instantly to e-mail make the problem worse. Using her own story as an example, Pollack explores the many reasons women still aren''t widely represented in the top echelons of science, an issue that becomes even more pressing as STEM becomes shorthand for the future of economic success worldwide.

Management 8

Management Health Care Insurance Sharpe 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 24, 2016

Advanced NLG platforms — including, full disclosure, the one my company has built — start by understanding what the user wants to communicate. A few real-life or lightly fictionalized examples help drive the point home. As another example, large supermarket chains are very concerned about their inventory.

Call Center 8

Call Center Supply Chain Committee Analysis 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2017

At Pinterest, we understand that diverse teams yield smarter , more innovative results, which are essential in the competitive, dynamic tech industry. For example, while women typically make up roughly 16 % of software engineers in the U.S. I joined Pinterest as the company’s first Head of Diversity in January of 2016.

Diversity 8

Diversity Engineering Goal Industry 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 28, 2013

The shifting energy equation, for example, sets the stage for growth. The societal factors that have made America strong in the past continue today: its diversity, thirst for innovation, entrepreneurship, and institutional support for risk taking. Ratings on other countries and companies are more likely to improve than deteriorate.

Budgeting 8

Budgeting Market Segmentation Venture Capitalist Real Estate 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 23, 2011

The answer is the sharp and unexpected rise of existential risk. For example, in Japan, the utility company believed its nuclear problem was water — not enough water to cool the reactors and ponds. Every half century or so, the risk assumptions underlying our economic, social and political foundations change dramatically.

Uncertainty 13

Uncertainty Supply Chain Scenario Planning Sharpe 13

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 30, 2011

But other companies have managed to thrive long after the departure of their talented founders (GE, IBM, Procter & Gamble, HP until recently). It's true that Apple's success in the last decade has been built on a remarkable string of innovations, which seems harder to "codify." Why not Apple? Forget grand strategy.

P&L 14

P&L Supply Chain Retail COO 14

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

When we interviewed 45 such people across 39 companies in 8 industries in the United States and Europe, we found that by identifying low-value tasks to either drop completely, delegate to someone else or outsource, the average worker gained back roughly one day a week they could use for more important tasks. Lead by example.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Peer Review Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 19, 2011

Yet I still have a sense of anticipation because in every one of Friedman's books there are a handful of insights that are so clear, so sharp, so flat-out right that they frame how you look at the world going forward. But their insight applies just as powerfully to companies and their leaders.

Airlines 16

Airlines Mission Statement Sharpe Brand 16