library
"Show me your books and I will tell you who you are."
Our curated library of unconventional insights worth sharing.
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Find a curated list of essential readings published in leading magazines and those created by our team.
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Explore a curated selection of videos offering valuable lessons in strategy, innovation, and AI.
Essential books
We often get the question which books are truly great. This is our selection of must-read books, organized by 3 areas: strategy, organization and AI. For each book we provide short commentary why these are essential.
Strategy
Organization
AI
Articles for that aha moment
A short curated list of essential readings that offer diverse perspectives on strategy, innovation, and organizational leadership.
In depth review of different ways to formulate strategy under high uncertainty. Beyond classic scenario modelling.
Describing jobs to be done and how to apply in a 5 min read.
Proving a cookbook for how to drive a creative yet structured ideation process. I worked with Joe, he is very good at this.
A classic on how to manage risks in any start-ups. A must-read for anyone venturing into something new.
Our articles describing how to tackle issues in a new way
Strategy
Giants in their industries. Leaders in innovation. And yet—each of them faltered in the face of technological disruption.
As Peter Drucker once said, “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer”. Embracing new technologies and business models seem nowadays a must-do to achieve significant sustainable top-line growth or even stay in the game.
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In an era where rapid transformation is the norm, the traditional strategy process has often lagged, bound by top-down directives that move at the speed of annual reports rather than real-time insights. This whitepaper unveils a revolutionary approach: a dynamic, bottom-up strategy that not only engages employees and stakeholders at all levels but also harnesses the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence.
There is a fundamental disconnect between the abundant chatter about disruption and the actual ability to achieve it. As a result, many FMCG companies appear to be stuck and are bound to miss the train yet, I claim, unnecessarily so. A brighter future lies ahead for those who take the trouble to embrace and apply the magic code that was deciphered twenty years ago.
Organization
My good friend, Marketing Director at a global consumer brand asks me casually. A simple question, which begs for a solid answer. Because it is so fundamental if you want to build a truly progressive company. Customer-centricity, I reflect, is similar to Big Data and the other buzz words and teenage sex (everybody talks about it, few really know how to do it, etc etc).
Ikea is no longer just a furniture company, according to fastcodesign.com. The company is partnering with Adidas, Lego, and Sonos to sell you everything. Well, the latter point may be overstated, it did trigger a thought or two about SURVIVAL: RENEWAL is the key. Our human bodies survive through cell renewal. We as professionals survive by learning new skills, dropping the old.
A former colleague once lightened up the arduous appraisal meeting presenting a critical 'up or out' evaluation as a criminal case: Did that person have the means motive and the opportunity to do what we expect?
Quotes for triggering a much needed discussion in your Team.
Strategy & innovation
That business purpose and business mission are so rarely given adequate thought is perhaps the most important cause of business frustration and failure.
Peter Drucker
Entrepreneurship is 'risky' mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.
Peter Drucker
For [target customers]. Who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings in the , market]. My idea/product is a [new idea or product category]. That provides [key problem/solution features]. Unlike [the competing product]. My idea/product is.
Venture Capitalist Geoff Moore
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.
Peter Drucker
Innovation is risky. Not innovating is risk.
Scott Anthony
Smart entrepreneurs aren’t cowboys – they are methodical managers of risk.
Eyring Gilberts
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.
Reid Hoffman
A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.
Steve Blank
Only 11 percent of executives feel strategic planning truly adds value.
Harvard Business Review
Investors and entrepreneurs should learn to be patient for growth, but impatient for profits.
Clayton Christensen
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson
Organization & leadership
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
Peter Drucker
We do not want rules. We want values to aspire to that define what it means to be part of our tribe.
Owen Eastwood
Belonging is a wildly undervalued condition required for human performance.
Owen Eastwood
Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.
Daniel Pink
Emotions if not checked, or neglected, they serve goal
#1: safety,instead of
#2:development.
Monique Schuurmans
Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.
Clay Christensen
A whopping 42% time spent on internal issues resolving disputes, wrangling resources, negotiating targets.
Bjarte Bogsnes
In an ordinary organisation, most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for, covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions on them and hiding their limitations.
Robert Kegan and Lisan Lahey
Only 3 per cent of leaders’ time today is spent on visioning, but three in four workers expect their leaders to paint pictures of the future.
Owen Eastwood
Hierarchies amplify or suppress information. Flat networks distribute it.
Tamsim Woolley-Barker
Culture is the way in which people solve problems.
Fons Trompenaars
Culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don’t even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people will autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.
Edgar Schein
Hierarchical organizations used to provide certainty. They try and still tell us where to go and when , what to do and how, which provide some illusion of stability.
Tamsim Woolley-Barker
Executives and managers may have the big picture but they lack vital local detail.
Tamsim Woolley-Barker
If leaders expect real learning, critical thinking, and change, then discomfort should be normalized.
Brene Brown
Feelings of insecurity over belonging trigger our fight, flight or freeze response.”
Owen Eastwood
Videos
A selection of videos we often use in our work to bring different insights across. Each video offering valuable lessons for strategy, innovation, or AI.
The classic milkshake story by Clayton Christensen. Explaining as no one else can, why and how to start with the customer.
Showcasing how a strong purpose triggers powerful new concepts and brand growth around the world.
Pitch early and clearly. Jack Ma shows how.
Steve Jobs masterpiece why one should always start with the customer.
Sir Jonathan Ives explains what attracted and kept him at Apple. This is what purposes does.
Curious about how LLMs actually work? Watch this insightful video.