“Design is intelligence made visible.” —Alina Wheeler

1: Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath wanted to know the key difference between high- and low-growth large organizations.  

Her research suggests two factors.  Which seem to be in opposition to one another.

“On the one hand, they [high-growth large companies] are built for innovation, are good at experimentation, and can move on a dime,” she writes. 

The second factor?

“On the … continue reading

1: McKinsey consultants asked a CEO how much time he spent managing other people’s egos. 

Probably 20 to 30 percent of the time, he answered.

Then, they asked him what percent of time people spent managing his ego.

Silence.  

“Beyond the anecdote,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence, “the research is clear: When CEOs are asked if they act as a … continue reading

1: To change workplace culture, the best CEOs survey team members to understand how engaged they are and how well they know the organization’s vision and strategy.

The first metric to measure? Will associates fill out the survey?

At Eaton Corporation, the power management technology company, former CEO Sandy Cutler and his team achieved a spectacular 96 percent participation rate on their voluntary survey across 175 countries and in 37 … continue reading

1: “Culture can be a hard topic to get one’s head around,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

Perhaps the best definition comes from Marvin Bower, McKinsey & Company‘s former managing director, who said culture is “the way we do things around here.” 

Which is why the world’s best … continue reading

1: The year was 2012.  DBS, a large Asian bank headquartered in Singapore, had a problem.  Card skimmers had hacked into their ATMs.  Money was being stolen. 

CEO Piyush Gupta moved quickly to identify how the breach had happened.  

“The problem was traced to a decision made by a junior operations colleague,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That … continue reading

1: It’s Saturday night.  We are at a chamber music recital, listening intently as the musicians play one of Mozart’s string quartets.  When they finish, we join other audience members clapping with genteel applause.

The following day, we attend an NFL football game.  On a last-second play, the quarterback finds an open receiver who scores a touchdown, and our team wins the game.  We leap to our feet, screaming and … continue reading

“Culture is coded wisdom.”-Wangari Maathai

1: Seen the movie City Slickers?

At the heart of this classic 1990s comedy is the relationship between Mitch, a Manhattan yuppie played by Billy Crystal, and Curly, a tough, wizened cowboy played by Jack Palance.

Curly tells Mitch, “It all comes down to one thing.  You focus on that, and everything else don’t mean s#&t.” 

Mitch is confused.  He asks Curly … continue reading

1: Splat.  

A multiyear Research & Development project for the Dutch firm DSM‘s picture frame glass business had failed.

Here’s where things got interesting. 

DSM’s CEO Feike Sijbesma “had set up a ‘Hall of Failures’ where the company organized funerals for failed projects,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

“The … continue reading

1:  The year was 2019.  Johan Thijs, CEO of Belgian-based bank-insurance group KBC, had appeared in the Top 10 of the Harvard Business Review’s Top 100 CEOs in the world list for three years straight.

“If ever there was an ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ scenario,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence, Johan was it.

KBC consistently posted … continue reading

1: DuPont CEO Ed Breen has been celebrated for his boldness. 

Earlier this week, we looked at his aggressiveness in conquering the multi-billion dollar cable set-top market while serving as CEO of General Instruments and later in pursuing a merger with Dow Chemical, as detailed in  Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra‘s powerful book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from … continue reading