Working Wider

Apple’s success comes from how effectively they’ve accelerated time-to-value; not time-to-market. After less than eighty days on the market, Apple’s iPad sold three million units.  In contrast, Apple began tablet research before they began iPhone development.  That would imply the iPad’s time-to-market is well over four years. Apple has consistently reduced their time-to-value.  It took Read more

What can you do when competitive boundaries change dramatically?  Let’s take a look at the challenges and choices facing Netflix as their market shifts from DVDs to digital distribution. In doing so, we’ll see how environmental boundary changes can quickly overpower the best business and organization models. How Netflix Won Netflix’s initial success can seem Read more

Procter & Gamble sources 50% of new product ideas from outside Starbucks is in Safeway and down the street GE Propulsion sells propulsion rather than jet engines Netflix now distributes movies over the Web as well as CDs Cummins makes power generators as well as diesel engines Facebook’s opens API’s to developers such as Zynga Read more

Yesterday morning Apple announced that they “…are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code.”  Effectively, they removed the words they added to their April development agreement that blocked Adobe Flash apps.  This change will also make it easier for Read more

Building on a previous post, I advocate implementing a wider reaching set of mutual “citizen” obligations will increase competitiveness over traditional employer-employee cultures. “When working across wider boundaries, it’s the citizens that rule.  The problem there is we think so much about leadership that we undervalue the role of citizens.  Working wider depends on a Read more

Power and position fail to deliver when collaborating across boundaries: internal and external. In response, leaders are increasingly called upon to lead by attraction.  While attraction is intuitively easy to understand, the principles and practices are not well-defined.  This essay offers a framework for understanding attraction and putting it to use. In my lifetime, I’ve Read more

This article outlines how to turn an inward facing organization outwards. It is meant for companies that seek significant growth rather than those in a pitched battle with established competitors in mature markets. The larger an organization becomes and the longer it lives, the more likely it is to become inward facing. As people, we Read more

A strong partner of working wider is thinking wider. This post examines how companies and leaders differentiate themselves. One of my favorite tasks each month is participating in the Band of Angels Screening Committee.  Our task is to winnow six potential deals for start-up funding down to three which will be presented at the monthly Read more

In the wider world, leadership and leading change are virtually synonymous.  With increased competition, the ability to change rarely happens as fast as we’d like. For example, how many times have you: Solicited input to define a change only to find that while everyone supports change, there are multiple opinions of what it should be Read more