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The art and science of the possible

~ A celebration of non-zero sum thinking

The art and science of the possible

Tag Archives: Risk

Leadership: between passion and lunacy

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by lnedelescu in business, innovation, management, Organizational Development

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Innovation, Leadership, Psychology, Risk

harlequin

I just came across an interesting article from CNN Money on the story of Microsoft’s Surface product line. Apparently somewhere along the path to the success that the Surface Pro 3 has turned out to be, Microsoft lost lots of money on intermediary product versions. Particularly, they were left with $1 billion worth of Surface 2 inventory. Microsoft never wavered in their support for the guy behind the Surface line, Panos Panay. That my friends, is the essence of leadership. You ain’t a leader until passion has gotten you in a position where you’ve either questioned your own sanity or been suspected of lunacy by others.

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Current HR practices killing innovation – an update

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, human capital, innovation

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HR, human capital, Innovation, Mavericks, Reliability bias, Risk

Image

About a month ago I argued in one of my blog entries that current HR practices’ bias towards reliability is killing innovation. This is a short update to provide further supporting evidence.

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Severe business crisis turn-around: turning vicious “tailspins” into virtuous dynamics

13 Monday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, consulting, Crisis, strategy

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business, Business Development, Crisis Turnaround, Recovery, Risk, Selectivity, strategy, Tailspin, Vicious vs. Virtuous Cycles

Image

Just like aviation seems to have mastered the science of stable flight, so does business look stable and predictable from afar. But at a closer look tailspins are never far-away and remain a possibility. Many companies don’t go out of business over prolonged periods of decline, but rather suddenly. The warning signs for a vicious cycle are there, but the signals are usually weak and management overlooks them until it is too late. At that point revenue spirals downward, less money is available to pursue new business resulting in a reduced probability of getting business, and the enterprise is headed straight for a spectacular crash.

I will save the details for how a company enters tailspin for another blog, but here I want to focus on the key strategy to recover from vicious cycles, and even turn them around into virtuous ones.

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It all depends: the art of problem solving

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, learning, paradox, problem solving

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Chaos, complexity, Consulting, Dave Snowden, Disruption, Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Innovation, Intractable Problems, Introspection, Knowledge, Learning, Methodology, Open Mind, Relativity, Risk, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Self-Awareness, Wicked Problems

It all Depends

Over the last decade, I’ve lived globalization, entrepreneurship, change and crisis, complexity and chaos. I must have run into at least a dozen intractable, impossible, show-stopper, nerve-racking, all-or-nothing situations and at least several orders higher magnitude wicked problems. I also ran into the entire spectrum of human behavior, what the Clint Eastwood character would call the “good, the bad, and the ugly” (I would actually add the “irrational”).

About five years ago I also started an in depth study of the cutting edge thinking related to complexity and disorder. Finally I also studied and noted my own behaviors and responses in such circumstances; like Hansel and Gretel I traced my steps into the wilderness in case I ever had to find my way back. This ability to not only act but rationalize the act has served me well, substantially increasing my awareness and lowering my stress when faced with the new and unfamiliar. It has also resulted in a problem solving and sense-making body of work which I think rivals the best of what’s available on the market. I have yet to capitalize on all this, but I have learned to be patient.

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