Reader, I’ve been wondering about some thinking disciplines and whether or not they need to be emphasized and improved in leadership education. I received my MBA late in the 1970s and I know I improved my knowledge and skills in accounting, finance, marketing, operations, management theory, and more. An unstated intention of the program was to improve my thinking skills, but such skills were not addressed directly. Functional knowledge is certainly important. However, after many years in the...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Reader, This is a bit long. Go grab a cup of coffee. I’ve been writing about wicked systems and wicked problems for a while. I was reading about the latest competing opinions about the Iran war’s resolution, and I realized that it’s a good example of wicked problems. The current Iran conflict possesses nearly all the defining characteristics identified by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in their 1973 work on wicked problems. The conflict is not merely “difficult” or “complicated.” AS we have...
15 days ago • 3 min read
Reader, My most recent birthday was one of those “big ones.” Two dials advanced! I was reflecting on my careers and on the changing world in which we live. That took me back a bunch of years to my very first real job – delivering the Chicago Daily News on my bicycle. That, in turn, got me thinking about the big picture of newspapers and “the news.” “Back in the day” Chicago had four daily newspapers. In the morning you could read the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun Times. In the late...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Reader, Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 and for years it was the undisputed symbol of the electric vehicle revolution. It made EVs desirable, technologically exciting, and commercially viable. It was more than a car company; it was a market-maker. It changed consumer expectations, pushed legacy automakers into motion, and created enormous shareholder wealth (especially for Musk). But leadership in one era does not guarantee ongoing dominance. Today, Chinese EV manufacturers such as BYD and...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Reader, What does a Nobel Prize–winning physicist and a very controversial entrepreneur have to do with you as you plan for your future or for the future of your organization? More than you might think. Richard Feynman and Elon Musk operated in very different domains, but they shared a common discipline: first principles thinking. They didn’t start with what is commonly believed. They started with what must be true. Feynman reduced complex problems to the underlying laws of physics. Musk...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Reader, “We” started a war, gas prices are rising, home sales are stagnant, AI-fear is rampant with new college graduates, immigration has all but stopped, farmers are hurting, and on, and on. And the stock market keeps rising. What’s going on? Let's think about the past, the present, and the future. The Past: We’ve Seen This Movie Before In the late 1990s, investors poured money into internet companies with little more than a name and a promise. Profits didn’t matter. Cash flow didn’t...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Reader, My beta readers for Navigating a Wicked World have given me plenty of solid feedback, so I’m busy with “the book.” This week’s Reflection is short and sweet (I hope). Many of you know that I use the example of a radar screen in my workshops and ask participants to consider what’s on the edge. Here are a few things that I’ve noticed this week and want to bring to your attention. Remember 2008? Mortgage and banking systems got in a lot of trouble due to their “financial engineering.”...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Reader, Here are a few stories from yesterday and today that may apply to tomorrow. Me and my slide rule After my “military sabbatical” in the mid-1960s I returned to the college campus to finish my education. I decided to study engineering and was on campus when TI, Casio, and HP introduced calculators. A big question at the time was “Is using a calculator rather than a slide rule a form of cheating?” Well, no. But yes. Regarding exams, it was simply a tool that made precisions calculations...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Reader, I was on a call Friday with a financial analyst, and we spent a bit of time wondering about the similarities of the 1929 Market Crash and the probability of a recession in 2026. Certainly, the specifics are different, but are there some similarities? Yes. That conversation got me thinking about bad and good surprises over the last 100 years that, just maybe, should not have been so surprising. Here are a few for your consideration. Stories of Surprises 1929 Market Crash: A LOT of...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Reader, Leaders must bring their organizations into the future, and that requires imagination. Why? Well, we have no data from the future, only from the past and the present. We have no choice but to imagine what the future will entail. When Jean and I were drafting The Prepared Mind of a Leader I thought we needed to look at respected science fiction writers and analyze how they “see” the future and build their mental models of what it will look like. Yes, imagination is needed, but we must...
3 months ago • 2 min read