Exploring ideas in strategy, management and how organizations really work.
Start me up The digital economy of 1995 hadn’t reached anywhere near today’s all-encompassing levels of cultural saturation, but that year still featured one of the splashiest consumer technology rollouts in history. This one wasn’t orchestrated by Apple though, as…
Development opportunity The industrial revolution and the subsequent rise of management techniques brought with them a greater focus on evaluating performance. Instead of laboring solo on the farm or in a home workshop, employees moved to factories and offices. They…
A guarantee to boot Outdoorsman Leon Bean was very familiar with the backwoods of Maine. Years of roaming the wilderness had given him ample experience with fishing and hunting and the gear needed for these activities. One item that left…
Fly the friendly skies By today’s standards, air travel across the United States in the 1960s and 70s was strangely luxurious. Planes had roomy couch-like seats and usually weren’t full, elaborate meal services were the norm even in economy class,…
Ready player won Law student Chuck Forrest had been working on a disruptive new strategy, and now he would finally get to unleash it. Forrest wasn’t in a typical competition. He was about to appear on the American game show…
Triumph and disaster Director Michael Bay is known for a long resume of blockbuster summer movies featuring his trademark emphasis on grand spectacle, including the liberal use of pyrotechnics.1 While critics have not been kind to his work, the studios…
On the mountaintop Silicon Valley’s mythos is grounded in stories of scrappy entrepreneurs who upended their entire lives in pursuit of their mission. An archetypal example is Marissa Mayer, who started as employee number 20 at Google before rising through…
Café society The earliest menus of the cafe that would eventually become the modern-day Starbucks deliberately mimicked the 1980s-era Milanese establishments that inspired the concept. Coffee options were limited and described in plain language, which was designed to introduce Italian…
Because it’s there Alex Honnold is a mountain climber, but such an unadorned description is akin to saying that Pele could play soccer, or Einstein dabbled in math. The term does not adequately capture the reality-defying nature of what he…
Slow and steady Not long after his debut in the top levels of soccer, Lionel Messi established himself as one of the most effective players in the world. He quickly gained renown for his tactical prowess, ball-handling skills, and playmaking…