I recently ran a poll on Facebook to find the “best cafe” in my area. Out of dozens of local venues, two absolute leaders emerged, with a few others trailing behind. But here is the kicker: Starbucks was not mentioned once. Not a single time. This is in an area with about a dozen “Iconic […]
Category: human values
Why “Back to Starbucks” is Strategically Impossible
—and what it would take to get close anyway. Upon taking the helm at Starbucks in 2024, CEO Brian Niccol issued a rallying cry: “Back to Starbucks.” He wants to reclaim the “Third Place”—that essential social anchor between home and work – the original Starbucks’ strategy that had once made them the undisputed leader of […]
Q7-Lite: The One-Minute Tool That Reveals What Drives People
… and Unlocks Millions in Lost Productivity. Every company on Earth keeps pouring money into “culture initiatives,” “alignment workshops,” and the usual parade of buzzwords. And yet the underlying problem never changes: People don’t understand what truly motivates them – or anyone else. They think they know. Everyone swears they know. But when you put […]
Why Democrats Lost
Leadership Lessons for Business from Trump’s Win In the post-election postmortem, analysts have been dissecting the Democratic defeat like blind men describing an elephant—each touching a different part, yet missing the entire creature. Hundreds of explanations have emerged, from messaging missteps to demographic shifts. But these are mere symptoms, not the underlying root cause. Attempts […]
The Value of Values
Aligning Organizational and Individual Values: A Guide for Business Leaders, Part 1 Imagine you’re the founder or the CEO of a growing business. You’ve heard about the importance of company values, so you gather your team for a brainstorming session. After a few hours and several pizzas, you emerge with a list of inspiring words: […]
A Hidden Benefit of 360-Degree Reviews
Ever wondered if there’s more to 360-degree reviews than meets the eye? In this article, we’ll uncover yet another A360 secret that could transform your team’s dynamics. We’ll explore real-life examples and offer practical insights that may change the way you view feedback and leadership development. In Part 1, I outlined the benefits of 360-degree […]
UVALDE, BOEING, COJONES, and Shared Values
It took the US JD 604 days to acknowledge the glaring truth: the police response to the May 24, 2022, deadly Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting was “a failure that should not have happened.” Well, duh!.. One year, seven months, and 25 days, and nearly 600 pages later, the report highlights “a sweeping array of […]
Dispelling the Myth: Flat Hierarchies and the Pursuit of Genuine Diversity
Hierarchies play a crucial role in facilitating efficient information exchange within organizations. When teams are congruent, organizations can flatten their hierarchies, boost creativity and performance, and maintain genuine diversity.
What Do Elon Musk and Bill Gates Have in Common?
GPT and Q7 offer an unexpected answer to this question. I asked ChatGPT to help me build Elon Musk’s values profile, using my Q7 questionnaire, and then compared it to the profile calculated earlier using crowdsourced responses. I was pleasantly surprised that the two profiles matched up to 95%! Getting almost identical results with a […]
Google-Boggle
In the knowledge economy, large bloated organizations are not sustainable. Google is just one of them.