For years I’ve sat on the opposing side of hierarchy. That rigid concept in which orders are barked down from above and complied to from below has robbed our corporations, governments, and social institutions of freedom. Many of the management thought-leaders we, at Outthinker, admire argue the same. Gary Hamel, for example, wrote “The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority.”
Last week, I was accepted on the Thinkers50 Radar list, composed of 30 management thinkers to watch in 2019. How I made the list, I am not quite sure. The entrepreneurs, researchers, advisers, and organizational leaders included in this list constitute a humbling collection of minds.
Do your people go into the kitchen … or do they go home?
When Kat Cole, a waiter at a local Hooters, learned there were not enough cooks that day to serve food, she watched as other waiters hung up their aprons. No food to cook means no food to serve, they figured.
Every year around this time, we sit to think about last year and set our resolutions for next. But there is a major risk in continuing this tradition, especially if you are doing something new.
When many hear the word Blockchain, they think immediately of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is an unfortunate mistake. You can classify types of Blockchains across two dimensions:
For years I have been selling Outthinker: our workshops, certifications, speeches, membership, etc. And to be honest, it has felt exhausting. Waking up to long lists of tasks, burning red, overdue, people to follow up with and check in with. Long flights banging away email outreaches when I could be drafting the next chapter of a book.
Some claim Blockchain will fundamentally change the world. Others dismiss it as hype. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Naturally, reaching your own conclusion of what Blockchain might mean for the world, your industry, or your business requires an understanding of what it is. Here we attempt to cut through some of the noise and describe, in accessible terms, what this technology, whether transformative or hype, really is.
We usually get it wrong. When trying to predict the path of innovations – which ones are hype, which ones are real, which ones will take hold, and which ones will fall out of favor – our record, as humans, is poor. We think this is because, in the study of innovation, people overlook a critical factor.
In my first article of this series on strategic openings, I covered three of the seven strategies successful companies used to create disruptive innovations that set them apart from the competition.
In chess, successful players know that a strong opening can give them the advantage to win the game. In fact, studies have shown that Grandmaster chess players often draw on something entirely “un-logical” from their playbook to create an unexpected opening. This is what gives them an early competitive edge over their opponent.
