We like to think we can shape the ideas of others. That’s why most transformation efforts start out with some snappy slogans, a communication program and a big launch. Most generate a burst of excitement and activity, only to fizzle out within months. This fuels change fatigue, making success for the next initiative even less likely.

We need to be far more humble about...

In early 2000, with their company on the brink of failure, Netflix founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph flew to Dallas to meet with Blockbuster executives. When I interviewed former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco, he vaguely remembered the incident but insisted he didn’t attend the meeting due to a scheduling conflict and merely stopped by.

Yet the Netflix founders r...

There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is a transformative technology, but so were smartphones, broadband mobile internet, cloud computing, and many other things over the last 20 years. It is truly amazing to think that just 20 years ago none of it existed and life was significantly different. Yet still, none of those things had and outsized impact on productivity.

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All too often, transformational initiatives are presented as a fait accompli. A strategy is set, a plan is made and everything is announced with a lot of hoopla at a big launch event. Questions are treated as a nuisance, something to be batted away rather than engaged with. Change leaders, in an effort that seldom succeeds, try to act as if they have all the answers.

Y...

When Steve Jobs came up with the idea for a device that would hold “a thousand songs in my pocket,” it wasn’t technically feasible. There was simply no hard drive available that could fit that much storage into that little space. Nevertheless, within a few years, a supplier developed the necessary technology and the iPod was born.

Notice how the bulk of the profits wen...