Until astonishingly recently in the sweep of human history, women in the United States had little control over their financial assets, and despite the reality that they make fundamental spending decisions, many sectors of our economy continue to cater to men. If McKinsey is to be believed, that...

Human brains were designed for a world of lateral change. But, as Ray Kurzweil and others remind us, learning-by-trial-and-error systems introduce the potential for exponential change. This has huge implications for how we design and build organizations and systems. 

You’re not imaging...

A robust scientific finding from decades ago mapped the richness of information flows against how far apart people sat at work.  Called the Allen Curve after MIT’s Thomas J. Allen, who discovered it, it shows a precipitous drop in information flows as people were separated at work....

I was delighted to be part of a virtual event sponsored by the good people over at Innov8rs, in which a field of 10 experts shared their perspectives on the prospects for innovation in 2024, launching the organization’s now much-anticipated annual handbook.

Conversations about what...

There is nothing like gathering with a group of peers from other organizations and sectors to facilitate making sense of the context in which crucial strategic decisions need to be made.  I was pleased to be an invited guest to the Outthinker CSO Summit, with the main topics being how...

Our conventional wisdom about teams is that factors internal to the team mostly determine how well they will operate.  My LinkedIn Live guest, Professor Deborah Ancona from MIT, begs to differ. No matter how great the clarity of roles, alignment on deadlines or otherwise suitable a...

Among the unintended consequences of AI applications built with few guardrails is that conventional views of what is intellectual property are upended – I found out the hard way!

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Well, that was a surprise!

An acquaintance contacted me on LinkedIn about something...

When it comes to challenges like climate change, it can feel overwhelming. After all, how much of an impact can any individual have on such a massive problem?   Imagine my delight at finding out about an initiative which is already having a dramatic effect on global groundwater restoration....

A dazzling array of speakers opened a day of hearing from entrepreneurs, researchers, businesspeople, and others convened for Princeton’s Keller Center’s Innovation Forum. I was delighted to be part of a panel, each person discussing a slightly different aspect of the current...

This week, we’re launching a new guidebook series at Valize, designed to share core ideas about strategy today in a convenient online format for using with your team or on your own. The first one has to do with customer behavior and the all-important understanding of how traditional...

A board and governance level issue that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is whether firms are being run as value creators or value extractors. As economist William Lazonick points out, absent real pushback, it is all too easy for management to simply extract value from companies –...

Every bubble produces its own poster children.  One of the more astonishing is WeWork – a company that promised to defy the gravity of conventional real estate transactions by leasing long-term and renting short-term. At one point, it was valued at $47 billion – now it is warning...

Growth programs need a different plan for progress than the operating business needs

Executives without experience in bringing new ventures to life — whether as entrepreneurs, business leaders, those with transformation responsibilities or other change agents — often think that...

 Struggling with your weight? It’s because you are outmatched

As the Washington Post’s Tamar Haspel observes, “When three-quarters of humans can’t navigate the system successfully, the problem is the system, not the humans.” She notes that the food...