Category

Creativity

Category

First, picture an apple.

Easy to do.

Why?

“Because you’ve experienced apples with your senses,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

“You’ve probably done some combination of touching, tasting, seeing, and smelling an apple,” Erik and Tim note.

“You’ve even heard the crunching sound that an apple makes when you bite into it.”

An apple is concrete because you’ve … continue reading

1: The competition to host the 2016 Summer Olympics was down to the final four cities: Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro.

How much was winning the games worth, according to a Credit Suisse study?

The answer: ten billion dollars.

“Three of the cities had reason to be optimistic,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

“Chicago had President Obama … continue reading

1: On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members.

The disaster stunned the nation and triggered an intensive investigation into what went wrong. President Ronald Reagan appointed a presidential commission to determine the cause of the disaster.

The hearings were broadcast on television nationwide.

According to Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer in  Conversations That Win the Complex … continue reading

1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.  

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.

At the end of each week, I’ve been sharing an idea from Tynan’s book Superhuman by Habit. about how to install specific, positive habits into your life.

So far, we’ve covered:

2: … continue reading

1: The year was 1993.  GE CEO Jack Welch was in Japan when he heard a story about the country’s railway system.

After World War II, Japan’s economy had been decimated.

“A large portion of the country’s population lived in or between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka, which were separated by just 320 miles of train track,” Charles Duhigg writes in Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real … continue reading

1: Did you know that Babe Ruth began his baseball career in 1914 using a 54-ounce bat?

“That’s a big bat,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

“For those of you who are not familiar with what’s ‘normal’ for baseball bats,” the authors note, “most professional baseball players today use a bat that weighs between 31 and 35 ounces.”… continue reading

1: “There’s wind and then there’s a typhoon, there are waves and then there’s a tsunami,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The same is true in business.

“There are competitive forces and then there are supercompetitive forces,” he notes.

Andy calls it a “10X” change.

2: Harvard Professor Michael Porter identified the various forces that determine … continue reading

1: There are two traps CEOs and leadership teams fall into regarding innovation.

Trap #1: “The minute we think we truly understand the customer and can take our attention off discovering what matters, we’re dead,” Panera founder Ron Shaich writes in Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations.

“Sooner or later,” Ron notes, “even the most brilliant and innovative concept will fall behind the times and become … continue reading

1: One summer night in Milwaukee, the San Francisco Giants lost to the Brewers in a brutal late-inning collapse.

Bruce Bochy, the team’s manager, found himself sitting alone in his office, brooding over the loss.

Still restless, he decided to walk back to the team’s hotel.

“It was maybe four miles, and it was late, and the Brewers’ stadium is not exactly pedestrian-friendly,” Rustin Dodd writes in his post … continue reading