In October of 2008, I wrote about a company that had a reputation as a paragon of good management that was its own worst enemy when it came to sustainable efforts to innovate and transform. …

In high uncertainty situations, one can obviously make decisions that turn out not to be so great. But seriously, do you want to be the CEO featured in a headline “How A Ballerina Outmaneuvered you”? Here’s a story about a global pandemic, companies trying to make business sense out of…

During times of change, especially when the change is threatening, the right response for leaders is to double-down on flexibility and problem-solving. Unfortunately, as researchers have discovered, CEO’s often fall victim to the “threat rigidity” effect. …

My friend and colleague Bob Sutton and I continue to be amazed (and a little depressed) at the ongoing popularity of his landmark book “The No Asshole Rule.” It seems that, as Ron Boire is fond of reminding us, CEOs are people, too. …

CEO’s make a lot more money, have a lot more autonomy and enjoy a lot more control, than the people working for them. The danger is that they can develop incredible blind spots, lose the trust of their people and generally look like the A**holes my buddy Bob Sutton talks…

It’s tempting to invest in areas that promise certain returns for a given investment. Unfortunately, by the time an opportunity has become so well understood that anyone could pursue it, it is well on the way to commoditization. …

Rewarding Innovation heroes. Launching accelerators with great fanfare, then not following through. Making big claims about organizational transformation that never amount to anything. It’s all innovation theater and it won’t drive long-term benefits for organizations. …

Raise the curtain on Innovation Theater yet again! We know that to create meaningful innovations that can move the needle for the companies that sponsor them, attention, resources and commitment needs to be sustained. But in too many organizations, innovation gets started, gets some traction and — just at the…

As colleague Eric Johnson has pointed out, the decision architecture — how we are brought through the decision process — has a huge impact on the decisions that are ultimately made. …