Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
Reflection: What happens when ….
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Reader, Here are a few reflections about some past business failures. What happens when ....... Weak signals are dismissed? You get Nokia. Smartphone interfaces, software ecosystems, developer platforms and changing customer expectations were visible before Nokia’s handset collapse. An old mental model is retained? You get Kodak. They understood digital photography but continued to interpret the market through the economics of film, processing, and printing. Problems are defined too narrowly? You get Boeing. Its recurring quality problems were often approached as production defects, supplier problems or compliance failures. The deeper issue was systemic: the relationship among engineering authority, outsourcing, incentives, production pressure, leadership behavior and safety culture. One future is assumed? You get Zillow Offers. They built an increasingly large home-buying operation around its ability to forecast property prices and transaction economics. Bad assumption regarding price range. Commitment is made irreversible too early? You get WeWork. They made long-term lease commitments while selling customers short-term, flexible memberships. Execution is separated from learning? You get Peloton. They treated Covid-era demand as a durable growth trajectory. Employee success metrics drive behavior? You get Wells Fargo when aggressive sales targets and incentive systems contributed to employees opening millions of unauthorized accounts. Technology is treated apart from people and operations? You get Marks & Spencer when a cyberattack stopped online clothing orders for 46 days, interrupted store and supply-chain processes, and reduced operating profit. Digital infrastructure is inseparable from business continuity. Significant business problems are often thinking problems. The examples above are a warning that intelligence and experience need to be supplemented with ongoing improvement in your “thinking operating system.” The need to upgrade leadership thinking systems is even more important in the AI-era. That’s Julie, Jim, and I have instituted The Prepared Mind Project. Webinars, workshops, and “sprints” are coming. Cheers, Bill |
Bill @ MindPrep
Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
Reader, I’ve been writing about wicked worlds and wicked problems for a year or so, but I don’t want you to think that these are new. Here’s a story that’s over 30 years old. IBM was in deep trouble in 1993. Its mainframe-centered business model was weakening. Personal computing was reshaping the industry. The company was losing billions of dollars. Its major divisions operated with competing priorities, and many experts believed IBM should be broken into smaller businesses. At first glance,...
Reader, I’m in the midst of reading The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality by Steven Rosenbaum. It’s interesting, well written, and a bit scary. I’ll send my notes in a future MindPrep Reflection. Anyway, it got me thinking about thinking and some observations I’ve made over the years. Here are ten thoughts. The list is incomplete and I’m sure you have more. Send them along and I may include them in a future article. You’re a sucker if you need to always be right. You will ignore or...
Reader My first “career move” was time in the Marine Corps. And so, sixty years later, I’m still interested in military history. One of my favorite books is Miliary Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (Cohen and Gooch, 1990). The book was centered on failure modes and how they can interact. The point of the book is that there are three failure modes and when they interact they can result in catastrophe. They are: Failure to learn Failure to anticipate Failure to adapt The authors...