A couple of years ago, the American Airlines CEO shared his insights with a group of us in Austin. He had done well to reach the position he was in, and the wisdom was evident: 1.     Previous CEO had been a great mentor; 2.     Need solid foundation for solid decision making; 3.     Career path a)    …

In our growing borderless world, there are shifts in public policy which have made the movement of people, products, money and ideas move across national boundaries easier than ever. And, it is only getting easier, as this global flow is estimated to triple in the next decade, due to: a) rising prosperity and participation in…

When I worked at IBM at the beginning of my career, I had a mentor. He met with me one time for 24 minutes. One of his metrics on his annual performance management was to “Serve as a mentor,” and I am sure he checked off the box as “complete.” Of course, the intention of…

As one company’s CEO transitioned out to make room for a new one, I was at the conference where this company started to “Create Their Future.” The past is a story (they recognized the previous CEO), the future is a possibility (celebrated the new strategy). With this transition came a new future-state view. Yet, the…

Organizations must regularly evaluate assets in order to determine their value differentiation. Too many times, an organization holds onto a product or service that is minimally impacting their profit (i.e., bricks in a backpack); whereas the trade-off decision would be a better investment of their finite resources to an asset with a higher payoff.  In…

Many organizations have adopted the triple bottom line: People, Planet, and Profit. This contrasts a pure profit orientation; so that an organization also considers reducing its carbon footprint, energy usage, water usage, pesticide usage, etc…  However, as one CEO told me, we cannot lose focus on making profit. If we lose sight of that, then…

The most innovative companies in 2014 were: Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Tesla, Toyota, Facebook, and Sony (Source: BCG). Many corporations are innovating – yet in different areas that have provided each of them with unique success. ·       Excess Capacity – Airbnb has more lodgings on any given night than all Hilton hotels combined…

From the 1970’s and 80’s, ½ of Fortune 500 companies used this to manage their portfolio of products, R&D investments, and business units. There are two primary factors and drivers:  company competitiveness (market share), and market attractiveness (growth rate).   Cash Cow = low growth/high share Stars  = high share / high growth Question Marks = high growth /…

In a recent conversation with a Program Management Office (PMO) for a large scale, global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) deployment, we discussed the accounting of employee salaries. Of the entire deployment team, most all salary costs were capitalized over the length of the project and were depreciated.  However, the auditor said that the Change and Learning team had to be expensed in the fiscal year that they…

A CEO must balance mature vs. emerging product, while facing intense quarterly earnings pressure. This results in a rapidly shrinking and condensed time between R&D and product profitability. This counters the popular Robert Louis Stevenson quote, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”  Yes, we can…