The iceberg of ignorance was first published in 1989 by consultant Sydney Yoshida. (I wrote about it here.) It led to the popular notion that front line workers knew 100% of the problems, supervisors were aware of 74%, middle managers were aware of 9% and senior executives were only aware of 4% of the problems. […]
“It’s not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” – W.E. Deming The importance of innovation to business success continues to grow rapidly. In a survey of U.S. executives, 84% said their strategy is “very dependent” or “extremely dependent” on innovation for long term success; up from 67% just 3 years prior. And it’s not […]
Although there are success stories to be found, numerous articles in the past year alone continue to highlight the high failure rate of continuous improvement initiatives like lean, six sigma, agile, and the like (70%). But here are three things continuous improvement leaders could leverage for better outcomes. Learn and leverage the “natural strategy” approach. […]
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker The leadership of any business cannot possibly know the ins and outs of every task, every job, every process in the organization. Yet, when it comes time to change, reinvent or restructure even part of the organization, leaders often […]
Don’t you just love disruptive entrants into food stores! Be sure to tune in!
Many will be familiar with the concept of the “iceberg of ignorance”. It was popularized in 1989 by a consultant named Sidney Yoshida. Yoshida conducted a study that concluded that top management was only aware of 4% of the problems in a company… only the tip of the iceberg. It was a popular concept that […]
There’s a lot of talk about how dramatically different the Millennial generation is. And so, every organization is madly scrambling to “appeal” to this large cohort. For crying out loud, businesses are destroying private offices, installing slippery slides, and changing dress codes in the hopes of attracting talent and engendering loyalty. But they’re just people […]
Consider this… The lifecycle of a business in the 20th century was 75 years. By the year 2000, that number had dropped to 15 years. Now, the number is 7 years. See it explained eloquently in this video… Is it any wonder that 70% of the Fortune 1000 businesses listed 10 years ago are now […]
Some time ago I was asked to improve the new product development process at Kraft Foods. I call it the Idea to Market process… i2m™ for short. The assignment came from the top of the house who was feeling tremendous pressure to accelerate innovation to fuel earnings growth. The CEO was primarily concerned with accelerating […]
What’s something big business really needs to focus on to be more innovative? It’s readily apparent at nearly every large business. Big businesses struggle with innovation. They also struggle with process. And just as commonly, they struggle with collaboration across organizational boundaries, i.e., silos. These issues are interrelated. So is the solution to them. Simplify […]
