Making Innovation Happen
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 09:55PM In this interactive presentation—one in a series of multimedia frameworks—McKinsey alumnus Kevin Coyne describes how companies can use the business system to evaluate their choices at each stage in the process of creating and delivering products. Aligning conduct at every step with the company’s value proposition creates a truly integrated business strategy.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 09:44PM Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 01:15AM Rising star Jim Barton has decidedly mixed feelings after being selected as the new chief information officer at the fictional IVK Corporation. On the one hand, he lacks an IT background; on the other, he's ambitious and up for a challenge. And a challenge it is: When Barton takes over as CIO, his company badly needs a jolt of energy and expertise to grow and to resuscitate its declining stock price. The chief executive who promoted Barton is hopeful but hard-nosed; and Barton's IT group—while talented and tech-savvy—is impatient, even borderline dysfunctional. So begins Barton's wild ride and ultimately an excellent journey to learning effective leadership skills in The Adventures of an IT Leader (Harvard Business Press). According to the novel's creators, a fictional approach allowed them to blend real-life incidents they had encountered as managers, consultants, and educators working with a diverse set of companies. "In this way, we could pool all this knowledge and distill it down to the essential principles that CIOs can generally apply, regardless of industry or size of firm, while describing 'realistic' and
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 01:01AM by Peter T. Golder and Thorsten Liebert 4/09/09 How to create a culture that combines healthy risk taking with effective risk management.
Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 11:29PM Leaders can tell stories to paint a vision or strategic direction, share a lesson, convey values or
illustrate desired behaviours. Stories also have an ability to forge deeper connections between
people, so inspiring them to focus their attention and take action. As Terrence Gargiulo said,
“The shortest distance between two people is a story.”
Stories work for leaders as a successful communication and engagement technique for several
reasons.
Firstly, stories convey emotion effectively, and emotion united with a strong idea is persuasive.
We remember what we feel. And our emotions inspire us to take action.
Secondly, stories are concrete and have the ability to transport us imaginatively to a place
where we can visualise the events being recounted.
Thirdly, stories are memorable: we are up to 22 times more likely to remember a story than a
set of disconnected facts (such as presentation dot-points).iii
Lastly, stories represent a pull strategy, unlike the push strategy used when we argue in a more
traditional way. Stories engage the listener, pulling them into the story to participate in the
conversation, rather than telling them what to think.
View the full story here
