Blog Yes & Know

Flat is the New Black

Ever wonder why big organizations act so darn slow? It’s not because of size alone. It’s because our modern day organizations are designed and optimized for the “what is” rather …

Reinvention of Work

Usually at TED, people talk about success. I’m going to talk about why companies fail and specifically why the old rules — those that once made companies powerful — no …

The New How Video

Click to play…an overview of The New How.

Za Book Title

Many people have helped me pick the title of my new book in contributing ideas or reviewing options. It seemed only fair to update you now that we’ve made the …

Open Letter to Carol Bartz, Yahoo

Congrats on your new role. For many of us in the tech industry, Yahoo is more than a company, it’s a Silicon Valley icon. By putting in the kind of strong management you represent, I hope the board is signaling the company’s intent to reinvent itself and thrive once again. Your opportunities speak to opportunities for every tech firm, so we’re going to make this an Open Letter in the hope that everyone can learn from the experience you’re about to have.

Creating Velocity thru Strategy

What should you do? Do you stop things? Start things? Answer: yes, to both. Of course you should rethink and reevaluate but if you do that for long you put at risk the current business or effort simply because you didn’t execute what you could have done.

Hope is Not A Strategy

Executives at the helm of companies from small firms to large enterprises spend much of their time thinking about how to drive growth. But putting those thoughts into action can challenge even the most seasoned leader. Often executives focus on the “what” of strategy at the expense of the “how” — neglecting the “how” makes success a long shot.

Avoiding Strategic Failure

I’ve watched strategy being developed within companies like Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and Nokia. I’ve seen strategy created by individuals. I’ve seen the big suits of Bain and McKinsey at work. I’ve seen it done well, and occasionally I’ve seen it done poorly. Having read more than 100 books that define the best thinking on strategy, I’ve noticed that following the existing methods often doesn’t yield success.
It’s not just the methodology. Here are five reasons strategy fails in businesses:

Leader of Ideas

Big contributions come about through preparation, dialogue and thinking together. That’s what strategy is about. To a novice, strategy often gets linked to the meetings, the planning, the process and …