Trading Places
In POW camps, officers could impede survival
In a newly published academic study, two management experts raise the question: “Is a hierarchy that is optimal in one environment [the battlefield] still optimal in a related but different environment [a prison camp]?”
What A CEO Can Teach A Pope
“Someone, somewhere has a better idea”
In the days leading up to the election of Pope Francis, Thomas J. Reese, a noted Jesuit priest and scholar at Georgetown University, was widely quoted as saying that the next successor to Saint Peter needs to be “Jesus Christ with an M.B.A.” That’s a colorful way of putting it, and probably not many Roman Catholics would want a Vicar of Christ to talk like a VP of Strategy. It would be more than curious to hear a papal address about the church’s “core competency” or its need to “ideate” and achieve “synergy.”
Still, Reese’s point is well taken.
Ten Lessons for Idea Hunters
Know your gig, don’t let the job define you, etc.
Type out the search words “ideas, innovation,” and Google will cough out no fewer than 329,000,000 possibilities for perusal. Narrow the search to “lessons about ideas, innovation,” and that number will drop to a mere 171,000,000. Let’s just say there are more lessons about business ideas than you’d ever want to scan, let alone consider and put into practice.
Two Cheers for Bad Ideas
Don’t leave a bad idea alone
How a ridiculous idea—Catholic-Jewish rumbling on the streets of Manhattan—led to one of the greatest Broadway musicals of all time.
On the Trail with the Idea Hunters
Disney, Buffett, Edison and the Gang
High-value ideas are not necessarily created. More often than not, they are already out there, waiting to be spotted and then shaped into an innovation.
Thinking Twice About “Creativity”
What gets lost in the studies of creative leadership
The ideas that fuel innovation are seldom original in any unmingled way. More often than not, they’re borrowed, much in the way that Apple’s Phil Schiller glommed onto what became a winning feature of the original iPods.
A Cure for Information Overload …
Know your gig
What we all need is a general filter that translates the world surrounding us into ideas that matter. And that particular filter is in your head, not in your software. We call it The Gig.
Let the Learning Begin
Advice to the class of ’11
Drawing lessons from an encounter between Walt Disney and Leopold Stokowski….
