digitaltonto

When Alfred Sloan created the modern corporation at General Motors, he based it on the military. The company was split into divisions, each with its own leadership. Information flowed up, orders went down and your rank determined your responsibility. The model assumed that leaders had a better understanding than those on the lower rungs. Managers made plans and foot soldiers ...

Every transformational effort begins with some kind of grievance: costs need to be cut, customers better served, or employees more engaged. That’s what drives the need for change, no matter what technological tools you intend to use. Merely touting the power of artificial intelligence—or any technology—won’t get you far.

Far too many organizations went in search of an ...

One thing that struck me during the 15 years I lived in post-Communist countries was how problems seemed to build on themselves. In Kraków, the abandoned frame of the Szkieletor building stood frozen for decades. Construction had stalled in the 1970s, so the frame just stood there rusting. It became almost a metaphor for the Soviet space as a whole.

In a healthy societ...

The modern practice of change management is still deeply rooted in Kotter’s original 1995 Harvard Business Review article. Yet the only evidence he cites is his own observations. From his subsequent writing, these appear to be case studies based on executive interviews. There doesn’t appear to be any significant effort to control for his own biases, those of his subjects, or ...

George Soros made a fortune betting against conventional wisdom. When the British government committed to keeping the pound pegged to the German mark, he bet against it and earned a billion dollars. He later pulled off similar trades against the Thai baht and the Japanese yen. Where others saw a boom, Soros saw a bust right around the corner.

His secret weapon was a th...