“I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison All of us, on some level, have a fear of failure.  We’re taught from an early age that winners are successful, with the unspoken implication that if you fail you must therefore be a loser.  As leaders, we sometimes have … Read more

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker I recently spent most of a morning visiting with a manufacturing client of our firm.  The main idea of the conversation was that this business has the opportunity to grow (a lot) but they are completely overwhelmed.  It’s a relatively small … Read more

  “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol I was visiting with a member of our leadership forum recently and when the topic eventually turned to problems with some of the leadership team, he said, “Hopefully that changes over time.”  Sorry, I said, but hope … Read more

Last week’s post in this space talked about the importance of innovation in a changing world.  But I get pushback from people whose businesses have been fairly successful over a long period of time.  “We’re not struggling”, they say.  “We’re doing fine, our industry is healthy – why mess with a good thing?”  Try this … Read more

“The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” – William Pollard One of the most popular topics in business today is innovation.  If you google innovation, you get about 280 million hits.  If you google innovation in business, you get over 900 million hits.  It’s a … Read more