“Death is nature’s way of making things continually interesting. Death is the possibility of change. Every individual gets its allotted lifespan, its chance to try something new on the world. But time is called and the molecules which make up leaf and limb, heart and eye are disassembled and redistributed to other tenants.” — Peter Steinhart, The […]

A company proudly appoints its first Head of Innovation. Armed with a mandate to shake things up, this inaugural innovation chief launches several initiatives and talks up transformative change. But what happens if those early projects fizzle or a foundational assumption proves wrong? In many organisations, early missteps by the first innovation leader can embed

“We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” Marshall McLuhan Mark Twain is often credited with saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” The rhyme is persistent across time. Faces change, leaders wax and wane, technologies evolve, yet the dilemmas leaders confront are strangely familiar. The

“Knowledge can be a double-edged sword when it comes to creativity. While knowledge in a domain facilitates action and work in the domain, it can also constrain from thinking outside the domain.” — Manu Kapur I’ve just returned from speaking for Mastercard, who kindly invited me to join them for VIP access at Monza to celebrate their sponsorship

“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.”- Rumi I’ve been suffering with shoulder and neck pain for years. Occasionally, it gets so bad I go to a physiotherapist. They treat the symptoms, I take some anti-inflammatories, it eases for a while…but the dull pain always comes back. Recently, I decided to take matters into

“Your perspective is always limited by how much you know. Expand your knowledge and you will transform your mind.” — Bruce Lipton In 1873, the British amateur biologist Douglas Spalding noticed that young birds tended to follow the very first moving object they saw. It didn’t matter if that object was their mother or something else entirely. This

From Little Red Riding Hood to Amazon Web Services, the stories we inherit shape how we see risk and opportunity. This article explores how cultural conditioning and organisational habits keep us clinging to the core — the safe, well-worn path — even when innovation strategy and growth beyond the core demand we step into the unknown. Featuring insights from

[TL;DR: Just as parasites manipulate host behaviours for their benefit, our internal microbiota subtly influence our dietary choices and behaviours to enhance their survival. Similarly, organizations risk strategic stagnation when overly influenced by dominant customers, neglecting disruptive innovations essential for long-term health and adaptability. This Thursday Thought emerges from the surprising connections from eclectic insights — from

“No company starts out as a cumbrous bureaucracy, but most end up that way. As an organization grows, layers get added, staff groups swell, rules proliferate, and compliance costs mount. Once a company hits a certain threshold of complexity — around two to three hundred employees — bureaucracy starts growing faster than the organization itself.” — Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini,

“Competition and cooperation are not contraries. They have no opposite meaning. They are complimentary. In every aspect of life, we do both. Schools are highly cooperative endeavours within which scholars vigorously compete. The Olympic Games combine immense cooperation in structure and rules with intense competition in events. As the runners leap from the blocks, competition