The 1993 HBR article ‘Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines’ argued every company had to become champions of one of three value disciplines — operational excellence, customer intimacy, or product leadership. Since that book was published, virtually every business meeting I’ve been in has used at least one of these phrases to describe strategy. Value…
I’m behind in my reading. More than 30 unread books are sitting on my office shelves and another one joins their ranks almost every week. In an attempt to break the logjam I opened one somewhat randomly and read this intriguing claim: “You can personally choose to become more successful by adopting five learnable habits, which, in…
As soon as I finished reading Daniel Willingham’s fascinating book Why Don’t Students Like School?, I immediately put it on my list to blog about. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, applies the principles of cognitive psychology to the world of education. Essentially, his goal is explain to teachers how their students’ brains…
For reasons I’d rather not go into, I decided to do a little research into food poisoning with a seemingly simple question: How does food get poisoned? It turns out most food-related illnesses can be separated into two types: toxins and infection. The traditional use of the term food poisoning stems from the existence of…
“It’s true I deceived you but I wasn’t lying.” The statement, spoken brazenly by a work colleague, momentarily floored me. They claimed they were deceiving without lying but I thought deception and lying were the same thing. A little bit of research suggests there may be a difference. In ‘Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in…
Ever watch those TV infomercials late at night when you’re bored and can’t sleep? Of course you do. And you’re likely to buy things you don’t really need as well. ‘But Wait… There’s More’ – the most fascinating book I’ve read in a long time – explains the science behind infomercials. Virtually every element of…
Many popular phrases have their roots in sports. For example, the cliché “there is no ‘i’ in team” comes from the idea a cohesive team of players is more likely to win games than a collection of individual superstars. Players are told to focus on the team’s overall success rather than their individual performance. The…
What was the first fast food company?What was the first credit card company? Most people probably don’t know the correct answers are White Castle and Diners’ Club. While both companies still exist, they now have relatively small share in what has turned out to be very large markets. As I’ve previously argued, the benefits of first mover…
Remember the invisible gorilla video? In an experiment popularized by the book of the same name, volunteers were told to keep track of how many times a basketball was passed between players. While the ball was being tossed, someone in a gorilla suit walked between them in plain view. Very few people noticed the gorilla because…
The science of subtle signals suggests what you say is less important than how you say it. Mark Buchanan is a theoretical physicist who writes about how physics can be used to understand biology, economics, psychology and other social sciences. His book, “The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught and Your…