Harvard Business Review (HBR) has been tracking corporate change efforts for more than a decade. In 2019, they began developing a system to help companies measure their capacity for change. They refer to it as a company’s change power. 

Have you ever heard of project success defined as that project being completed “on time, within budget, and to scope?” This traditional definition may have been useful for project leaders in the past; however, there’s much more to consider for present-day programs. 

NASA couldn’t afford another failure following the tragic launches of the Challenger (1986) and the Columbia (2003). If you’re not aware, NASA’s culture at that time could be summed up by the sign in the Mission Evaluation Room: "In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data".

Gunpei Yokoi was an electronics graduate who landed a job at Nintendo in 1965, which was a small card-making operation in Kyoto, Japan at that time. The heart of Yokoi’s philosophy was putting simple technology to use in new ways that no one else considered. He called his approach “lateral thinking with withered technology.”

The past decade has seen the “rise of the customer” with a shift of power from the company to the consumer. Empowered customers have driven greater choice and accelerated competition.

Most Psychologists have a general familiarity with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I wanted to dig deeper into the model to determine whether it truly has sufficient validity to still be considered useful in today’s business environment.

From the time Scottish professor William Cullen designed a small refrigerating machine in 1755, artificial refrigeration has transformed the way we store, transport, and preserve food. It has enabled settlement of areas that aren’t served by natural transport lanes, facilitated the dramatic shift from rural areas to cities, and changed the daily lifestyle of millions of families.

In the last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to work with two large organisations in Australia – a healthcare provider and a professional services firm – helping them with their strategic planning for the next five years. Both of them wanted to know how to make smart decisions for the future, even when the future is uncertain and ever-changing.