Leading Blog

MARCH 18, 2011

The thing you want to be these days is a “fast follower.” By viewing technology construction as an artistic endeavor rather than a mechanical one, we are freed to not only build applications that have a stronger ROI, but also to do a better job of managing IT people.

Chief Information Officer 281

Chief Information Officer CIO ROI Technology 281

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Many social enterprises start small and grow fast. This puts a premium on the need to develop, or recruit, talented people who can take on evolving roles and responsibilities. Yet planning for future leadership needs falls between the cracks at most social enterprises. How do you develop, or hire, the staff you will need?

Banking 8

Banking Fast Follower Tools Survey 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2012

This was just one round in a developing fight over the rules and norms that govern the international political economy. Writing in 1979, Roger Hansen (in Beyond the North-South Stalemate ) succinctly characterized the choices faced by developed and developing countries in the face of these demands.

Globalization 12

Globalization Banking Restructuring Politics 12

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

GE's Jack Welch was inordinately fond of emphasizing that his biggest leadership regret was that he didn't move fast enough to make fundamental changes. By stark contrast, IBM's Lou Gerstner practiced a cultivated deliberateness in his successful turnaround: Slow and steady won his leadership race. That's a mug's game.

Consensus 8

Consensus Welch Retail CEO 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

The theme of the big event was "Technology-led Transition and Innovation-driven Development," which sounds broad. I wrote a couple of months ago about Chinas leadership in the clean tech race , but at the macro level. This last article is the one that really grabbed my attention. Thats what Chinas Hi-Tech Fair is doing.

NGO 15

NGO Chemicals Guidelines Telecommunications 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 23, 2014

A few years ago Dave Ulrich, a management thought leader from the University of Michigan, made a comment I found both insightful and profound: “ Every leader needs to have a model of organization design.” An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.

Ulrich 8

Ulrich Cost Efficiency Consultative 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 15, 2016

The idea is to fast-forward a project, so you can see what the end result might look like and how the market will react. It’s also a popular construct in agile project management. The leadership at Slack used the process to decide between two fundamentally different marketing approaches. Sprints encourage fast follow-up.

Consensus 8

Consensus Hotels Project Fast Follower 8