“Tenant farmers don’t pick up rocks.” Just as tenant farmers, who have short-term leases on the land they cultivate, lack the incentive to invest in long-term improvements like clearing the fields of rocks, some leaders with increasingly short tenures hesitate to make crucial investments in the future of their organisations. Rather than focus on initiatives that require time and resources to bear fruit, they often shutter them, earn a bonus on their efforts, and are out the gate before the lack of seedcorn becomes apparent. Consequently, the organisation becomes stuck in a cycle of short-term gains, missing out on the long-term benefits that arise from seedcorn investments and productivity programmes akin to picking up rocks.
Marty Cagan.has long worked to reveal the best practices of the most consistently innovative companies in the world. A natural companion to his bestselling book INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to leverage the potential of their people to innovate truly: product leadership.
Whether you’re a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Disciplined Entrepreneurship gives you the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want.
Author Bill Aulet is the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as well as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
To successfully navigate the new world, we must humbly accept; that we don’t know what we don’t know. Like the mapmakers of the past, we must accept that accepting ignorance had to come before embracing knowledge. In the business world, this means a departure from the world of a five-year plan (map) in favour of the uncertain harbour of a five-year direction, where an organisational North Star serves as a magnetic force. This new mental map leaves enough room for uncertainty, deviation and exploration, just like the Ribeiro map.
It is a pleasure to welcome to the Innovation show a friend of the show to share insights from his latest book, “Learning to Build: The 5 Bedrock Skills of Innovators and Entrepreneurs”, Bob Moesta.
The Seneca Effect, also known as the Seneca Cliff or Seneca Collapse, is a concept named after the ancient Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The effect is based on Seneca’s quote, “Fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid.” He observed that many things in nature, including human affairs, systems and civilisations, tend to decline much more rapidly than they ascend.
Derek van Bever and team investigated the incidence and consequences of growth stalls in major corporations, then probe the root causes. Examining hundreds of stall points, the authors conclude that the greatest threat to a company’s growth is posed by obsolete strategic assumptions that undermine market position, and by breakdowns in innovation and talent management. This is Stall Points.
If you neglect to remove the black walnut, you will see a gradual departure of the surrounding species to healthier pastures, with the younger saplings leading the way. In conclusion, just as removing a black walnut tree from an environment restores balance and promotes healthy growth, it’s essential to address toxic employees in the workplace to maintain a positive and productive work environment. It is essential to repair the broken windows.
Microstress: tiny moments of stress triggered by people in our personal and professional lives; stresses so routine that we barely register them but whose cumulative toll is debilitating. We welcome the author of “The Microstress Effect” Karen Dillon
In his book, Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organizations, and Life, Aidan McCullen writes about how, centuries ago, sailors would set out to sea with maps labelled with the Latin words hic sun dracones – here be dragons – which meant that they didn’t know much – if anything – about the uncharted waters and unexplored lands that awaited them.