The 3 Best Ways to Avoid Bad Decisions Caused by Groupthink

Do you remember Swissair? In the 20th century, this airline used to be as economically solid as a Swiss bank, which is why some people called it the “flying bank”. And yet, it was the first airline to collapse in the crisis of 2001. Researchers Aaron Hermann and Hussain G. Rammal from the University of … Read more

Success and Failure of Strategic Management in 2015 – Part 2

In part 1 of “Success and Failure of Strategic Management in 2015” I had presented three cases of what I consider good strategic management. In part 2, I will now focus on examples of bad strategic management that emerged in 2015. Bad Strategic Management Usually, bad strategic management only becomes visible to the public when … Read more

Why Climate Change is Relevant for Your Business

When the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference ended with the Paris Agreement on 12 December, one of the first to comment was Paul Polman, CEO of multinational consumer goods company Unilever. In a statement published on the same day, Polman praised the agreement as “a clear path to decarbonise the global economy”. He considers … Read more

5 Reasons Why Every Company Needs a Cybersecurity Strategy

It happened on Saturday, 14 November 2015: unknown hackers accessed the app store database of VTech, a global supplier of electronic learning products with headquarters in Hong Kong. The hackers captured a significant amount of user profile data of children and their parents, as BBC News reported. The profile data included name, email address, encrypted … Read more

How to Cope with Business Complexity

Business complexity has globally increased in the last three decades. Scope and diversity of products, services, processes and stakeholder relationships have significantly grown. The growth of complexity has come at a price: The world’s largest companies are on average losing more than 1 billion dollar each due to unnecessary complexity. At least this is what … Read more

How to Increase the Odds of Startup Success

Nine out of ten startups fail. Or, if you prefer to look at the bright side, one out of ten startups succeeds. The crucial questions is now: what could you do to increase the odds of being the one in ten? There is no easy answer, and you will get ten different answers, if you … Read more

The Power of Strategic Questions

Let me start with a question: how frequently do executives and employees ask general, business-related questions in your organization? If your answer is ‘Not too often’, I would recommend to ask yourself ‘Why?’ and ‘How could we change this?’. A tool for strategic leaders Questions are an indispensable tool for strategic thinking. Questions are the … Read more