sean f burns
United States
Video: Harvard Business Review – Innovate by Looking for Problem Patterns
Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School Professor, explains how to approach innovation creatively by studying the problem you are trying to solve and how it was resolved by other industries. Related articles Early book review: Clayton Christensen – How Will You Measure Your Life? (surfingbutterfly.wordpress.com) Clay Christensen: “Disruptive Innovations Create Jobs, Efficiency Destroys Them” (techcrunch.com) Provocative … Continue reading
How Senior Executives Kill Staff Engagement
I’ve been questioning lately meaning and productivity at work. As you look around you, in your organization, how engaged are the people around you? A recent article from McKinsey worth reading looks at how leaders can kill meaning at work. It’s built on a multiyear research project that found of all events that can engage … Continue reading
Harvard Business Review Blog: Modern Jibberish
There’s an amusing blog post on the Harvard Business Review from Dan Pallotta on the stupidity of business talk that has invaded the domain on sensible conversation. He outlines five strains of this plague, summarized below: Abstractionitis: People have forgotten the real names for things. Dan uses the example that a doorknob reinvented has become … Continue reading
Valuing academic business research
It was just this past week I was commenting to a friend over breakfast on how happy I am for not going after an MBA when it became so trendy (and overpriced). It was a tough choice at the time with the pressure of an MBA, so I decided to go for my first master’s … Continue reading
Havard Video: Leading Collaboration
John Abele of Boston Scientific has recently written an article for the Harvard Business Review on various forms of collaboration and is interviewed here. John gives a few examples of collaborative leadership, even in cases when leaders don’t get along, for the leaders to get the best outcomes from each other and the situation. Key … Continue reading
Capturing Value & Impact with “Big Data”
This morning on my way into work I was listening to a McKinsey podcast on public and private sector opportunities to capture the future value of Big data. I’m guilty of knowing about a growing mountain of data out there but never having done enough to understand what value it will offer, or how it … Continue reading
Nudging the world toward smarter public policy: Richard Thaler
A recent interesting McKinsey interview with behavioral scientist Richard Thaler takes a look at moving towards smarter public policy. While the article takes a closer look at data policy, there is an underlying theme of achieving a more transparent environment and how a change towards that state can happen. The Quarterly: What is the core … Continue reading
Operating in the future – Is your operating vision clearly defined? (PWC)
Without knowing the destination, what is the purpose of a venture? A recent PriceWaterHouseCoopers paper asks the question “Is your operating vision clearly defined?” While this paper was written for banking and capital market audiences, the principles apply to a much wider range of industries, ventures, and applications. What the paper does well is what … Continue reading
The Biggest Mistake a Leader Can Make
Management thought leaders share their ideas on how leadership goes wrong. Featuring: Bill George, Evan Wittenberg, Dr. Ellen Langer, Andrew Pettigrew, Gianpiero Petriglieri, Carl Sloane, Jonathan Doochin, Scott Snook, and Daisy Wademan Dowling.
Energy Retailer of Tomorrow
Utility retailers are being thrown into a new era of energy consumerism. Yet for almost a hundred years consumers have paid for energy as a utility. Few choices have existed for consumers in terms of provider or value, let alone options for additional products, services, and experience from their energy retailer. These new opportunities indicate … Continue reading
