When Jack Welch  was named “Manager of the Century” by Fortune magazine in 1999, it was still unclear what his legacy was going to be. Yet all the success belied serious problems rumbling underneath the surface. Welch increased profits largely by “financializing” the firm. Innovation languished. Yet perhaps the greatest indictment of Welch is those he chose to carry on his legacy. Jeffrey Immelt, quite famously, ran GE into the ground. Other proteges such as Bob Nardelli and Jim McNerney went on to do untold damage at iconic firms such as Home Depot, Chrysler, 3M and Boeing. Far from a mo ..read more

One of the things that I’ve learned in over two decades researching innovation, transformation and change is that things that change the world always arrive out of context, for the simple reason that the world hasn’t changed yet. Ideas start out feeble, weak and alone. They need ecosystems to make an impact on the world. Einstein's ideas about relativity started out as a boyhood dream about riding on a bolt of light. Penicillin languished in a medical journal for more than a decade before someone noticed it could be useful. Charlie Bennett first got interested in the ideas that led to quantum ..read more

The biggest misconception about change is that once people understand it, they will embrace it. That’s almost never true. If you intend to influence an entire organization, you have to assume the deck is stacked against you. You not only need to build support for an alternative vision of the future, you have to undermine the forces supporting the status quo. That’s why we need to think about change as a strategic conflict between the present state and an alternative vision. The truth is that change isn’t about persuasion, but power. To bring about transformation we need to undermine the source ..read more

Over the past few decades pundits have become enamored by the change gospel. We’re told that we live in a VUCA world that is more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous and therefore our only option is to disrupt the status quo, which is bureaucratic and bumbling. We need to move fast and break things. The simple fact is that it’s much easier to talk about genuine transformation than produce it. Ed Hansen and I call this “Transformation Theater.” Consider the fact that transformational initiatives usually take 3-5 years to complete successfully, while the average executive tenure has falle ..read more

The French writer Albert Camus believed our existence was absurd. He compared the human condition to Sisyphus, the mythical Greek king condemned to roll a boulder uphill, only to see it roll back down, for eternity. Incredibly, Camus imagines Sisyphus, returning to his labors at the foot of the mountain, as happy, having found meaning in his task. That is the nature of existential rebellion, to find meaning for yourself in a universe that provides none. In two decades researching innovation, transformation and change, one constant I have found is that you can’t control your luck. Anything can ..read more

A simple truth about status games is that we all play them, whether we are aware of it or not. It is our drive for status that helps us form and signal identity, figure out who we are in relation to others and derive a sense of meaning about our existence, whether that meaning is rooted in achievement, care for those around us or our ability to enforce our will on others. One of the reasons that the various schemes of leaderless organizations that have arisen over the past decade ago have not taken root is that they ignore these basic facts of human nature. They are, in large part, a cop-out ..read more

John Lennon wrote that life is what happens when you're planning other things and truer words were never spoken. We live life in the moment and moments are dictated by events. That’s why so many change efforts fail, because they do what feels good, choosing to signal identity rather than leverage shared values. Never underestimate the primordial need to signal identity. We want to show that we are not only a full-fledged member of our tribe, but a star player on the team. That’s why we engage in the type of moral outbidding that results in a purity spiral. Before you know it, we are voicing op ..read more

Saul Alinsky noted that every revolution inspires its own counter-revolution. “Once we accept and learn to anticipate the inevitable counterrevolution, we may then alter the historical pattern of revolution and counterrevolution from the traditional slow advance of two steps forward and one step backward to minimizing the latter,” he wrote. We are at an inflection point, with multiple pendulum’s beginning to swing the other way. The Business Roundtable denounced shareholder capitalism, Russia’s failures in Ukraine, military and otherwise, exposed not only the bankruptcy of the realists but the ..read more

Ockham’s Razor, or the “principle of parsimony,” is often interpreted as another version of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) rule. Yet it is far more profound than that. A far more accurate translation from the original latin is, “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” In other words, we should think before we add things that complicate matters. In modern life we are constantly adding things. William of Ockham was a monk, who led a simple existence. We’re expected to build things and, as we do, principles, rules and procedures accumulate over time and, as a matter of course, multip ..read more

General Electric has long been symbolic of the US economy. Formed in the 1890s when J.P. Morgan merged Thomas Edison’s electric company with other firms, it was one of the original components of the Dow Jones index and signaled America’s industrial rise. It was also became the first major conglomerate, forming the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919, which became a leading broadcaster. That all began to change when Jack Welch took over in 1981. He led a new era of “Welchism,” in which CEO’s laid off employees, offshored factories and engaged in “financial engineering,” to goose profits ..read more