The most common leadership failure is treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems. This failure is particularly true in strategy design and implementation as the discipline of strategy has not yet caught up to the needs of adaptive challenges.
Would you organise a dinner party with friends without checking on food preferences that might have changed, or competing events that might impact scheduling? Of course not, yet businesses do initiate innovation programmes without making similar checks, or as Rumelt suggested “What’s really going on here?”, or perhaps even Marvin Gaye’s shorter “What’s Going On”
2020 is approaching to the end. Needless to say, it has been a very hectic year and the best wishes on January 1st, 2021 will have a specific meaning. I do not remember any year in my career where so many aspects of the business have been impacted
Especially in B2B companies, the product management function is key to profitable growth. Despite its importance, and an obvious stepping stone to business leadership, the role is often misunderstood or poorly defined.
Francesc Guell shares some thoughts comparing market back, design thinking based pull innovation with technological push innovation.
For productive innovation, experience shows that most successful companies tend to be those that start from strategy, rather than just ideation.