If you had to guess which companies were the most innovative in the world, what names would you come up with? For me I think of Amazon.com, Google, maybe Apple. So I found it interesting how few names on the new Forbes Top 25 Most Innovative Companies Of The...

(Originally published on Forbes.com.) Business leaders make thousands of decisions each year, and sometimes, a single decision can have a powerful far reaching impact. In the book, The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time, Verne Harnish explores those “black swan” decisions that brought great success at companies like Zappos,...

This week’s edition of Bloomberg Businessweek has an article about magazine publisher, Richard Beckman, and his efforts to revitalize The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek and other media properties. I read with interest and some amusement how Beckman says he invented the term “B-to-I”. Most are familiar with the term B-to-B...

A friend of a friend recently started his new job as company President. On his first day he sat down with his boss, the CEO. “One thing we should do right away is decide roles and responsibilities,” the new President began. “What is it that I do and what...

If you’re the CEO, business unit leader, or department head this is what you should be doing: 1) Set the goal 2) Design the strategy to reach the goal 3) Operationalize the strategy; make a plan (e.g., break it down, make it measurable) 4) Staff the plan (e.g., hire,...

Many people believe that mergers and acquisitions rarely work. In fact, Wharton Professor Robert Holthausen claims that hundreds of studies prove that mergers and acquisitions fail from 50-80% of the time. Google would be surprised to hear that. See this cool graphic that shows how they’ve acquired 78 companies...