A compilation of recent, high-quality business insights from our businesses that brings together some of the best ideas and stories on Vision and Ideas, Strategy Execution, Top Leadership Effectiveness, and Talent and Succession.
Driving Fast Growth How can companies thrive in highly competitive markets? Box CEO Aaron Levie explains: You’re always balancing what is possible today and what can we do with technology with the reality and the empathy that we have to have for where customers are. How do we bring them, and how do we bridge […] Read More »
1. The Revolt Against Russell Brand The British press is doing what it does best: crafting gleeful, mocking reviews. The latest target is actor Russell Brand’s moronic-sounding new book, Revolution. “Rambling, half-baked, shifty and unpleasant,” announces The Daily Mail. “ Sub-undergraduate dross,” declares The Telegraph. Not to be outdone, The Guardian offers this analysis: His writing is atrocious: long-winded, confused and smug; […] Read More »
Strategy, Talent and Operations Integration: How T.J. Maxx Succeeds in Retail A recent Fortune article explores T.J. Maxx parent company TJX’s striking success. Sales increased 50% over six years to $27.4B and profits tripled. While the article discusses many tactics, it also conveys the company’s strong ability to integrate strategy, operations and talent management. Unlike […] Read More »
The Consequences of Bad Academic Writing Steven Pinker’s perfectly pitched “Why Academics Stink at Writing” opens by asking an essential question: Why should a profession that trades in words and dedicates itself to the transmission of knowledge so often turn out prose that is turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible […] Read More »
Apple, Culture, and G100 A good primer is this Bloomberg Businessweek interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook that goes beyond recent product announcements to reveal how he transformed company culture. He says: The lines between hardware, software, and services are blurred or are disappearing. The only way you can pull this off is when everyone […] Read More »
1. Why American Institutions Are Failing Francis Fukuyama’s huge new essay in Foreign Affairs details why American institutions are failing. It covers familiar ground – the rise of interest groups, the increase in political polarization. But the writing and analysis are very good. Expect it to be cited repeatedly by editorial pages and politicians of both parties throughout the […] Read More »
Can John Chen Save Blackberry? Blackberry has been widely written off as one of the great tech tragedies of the modern age. Yet CEO John Chen believes that the company still has a chance. This San Jose Mercury News story gives us a glimpse of how he has managed to recruit a top team: I […] Read More »
Achieving significant and lasting cost savings by changing the way retailers approach the persistent problems of shrink and concealed losses. For an industry where company margins typically hover between 1% and 2%, shrink remains a critical opportunity to enhance company performance and improve the bottom line. While most retailers have tried a variety of tactics […] Read More »
1. Singularity as a Religious Cult It is impossible to spend time in Silicon Valley without running into someone who sings the praises of Singularity University, the tech-focused, virtual institute led by futurist Ray Kurzweil. Now, a British reporter comes to town and discovers that its adherents, with their focus on “machine intelligence,” are essentially […] Read More »
Russia and a New World Order A thorough accounting of the Ukrainian crisis expects prolonged, far-reaching geopolitical implications from a new competition between Russia and the West. Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center – writing prior to the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 – said: Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia will be the battleground […] Read More »
