The Book
A WORK IN PROGRESS
A lot of this came out of three sets of experience:
- Big tech transformation-intensive jobs at global brands across several industries.
- Board and C Suite conversations explaining the 4th Industrial Revolution, 5G, and the concurrent change waves
- Lectures/discussions delivered on the same at HBS, Booth, Naval Postgraduate School, Cornell, Georgetown, and various boards/C-suites. Plus the foundational education from Kellogg and a year with Prof Jim Cash (HBS/Cash Catalyst) on board excellence.
The book will have three sections:
Explanation/Demystification
Basically, it explains the 4th Industrial Revolution/5G and the dozen change waves coming at the same time.
It demystifies those.
Flourishing in a Sea of Change/Innovation
The next 5 – 10 years will have more change than the last 20 and like prior ‘industrial revolutions,’ there will be winners and losers. This will happen at the national, sector, vertical, ecosystem, and company levels.
Creative destruction cycles unfortunately have a destructive side. It will talk about how not to end up there.
It will take a brief look back through history at ties of innovation-fueled change and see what worked best.
Then it explains what that means to competition, brands, customers, business models, modern innovation, and tech intensity.
That then informs how boards have to behave differently and often be composed differently.
A Box of Useful Lego
A Box of Useful Lego
Then it has a stack of pragmatic short sidebars relevant to the challenges ahead. Somewhat ironically in times of change some of the basics become even more important.
This is innovation meets pragmatism.
- Demystifying the chain from strategy to mission to structure to talent to command and control.
- Running IT is 5 different things not one...how to and how to excel
- What is Culture inside a company and how is it really managed
- My anthropologist adoptive Dad. Why anthropology really matters now more than ever (Nat Geo pic - yep that’s his head)
- BehavioralEcon, how memory really works, social psychology - must know fundamentals
- Better business logic and diversity. The ambiculture advantage.T he three business rationales for smart diversity and two simple tools
- Change Management demystified and why this matters
- Progam management for grown-ups
- AI Simplified. It’s four different things. A framework to managing and excelling and why finance is tehcnology’s most important partner on AI. Being very successful with AI/Data is like Patagonia. A lot of people want to go there. Few do. The journey is hard and long but everyone who eventually gets there is glad they went.
- GenZ and the five imperatives
- The reality of the future of work
- Motivation, demotivation and engagement in a modern world
- MR/AR/VR/XR demystified and why BR is the next big thing and the right framework
- Next-gen collaboration and how to leverage cumulative IQ
- Ecosystem competition and the anchor of partnership prowess
- What can businesses learn from how Special Operations approaches execution...I did a lecture/class at SOCOM on how to create a culture of innovation and did a chapter in a book co-published by them and the Center for Global Security Research out at Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab that details that.
- More military history - the real story behind Cinco de Mayo and what the battles (yes plural) mean for business. Von Moltke and innovation - innovation, planning and winning. The Hittites 1100 BC and agility.
- How corporations continually screw up start-up acquisitions and how not to do that
- Demystify 5G and where that is heading
- Why collegial beats combative starting at the board level
- The metaphysics of business information and why you are wasting effort and time without understanding this
- The real lessons of Silicon Valley
- Future US competitiveness gaps that need attention now
- The three things about cyber that really matter
- Keeping a sense of perspective, purpose, humor and a thought experiment about grandchildren
- A simple executable innovation radar
- Modern tech is like rugby or running a commercial kitchen. It is conceptually simple but really hard to do well. How to manage that.
