I read with sadness the passing of Clayton Christensen who left us too early at the age of 67 years old.  Christensen, who Forbes called one of the most influential business theorists of the past 50 years, was a best-selling author, Harvard Business School Professor, and avid business simulation creator.  His book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma” was one of those rare works that changed the world of corporate strategic thinking forever by presenting a framework for how innovation takes place and why it is a common archetype for existing market leaders to fail at seizing the next wave of innovation in their markets.

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I think the time has come for us to stop using Uber as the “ultimate” benchmark example for a disruptive business strategy.

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There are many forces and tendencies competing in the business world that directly impact the effectiveness of every leader trying to set (or understand) strategy while executing that strategy through people. The team, the district, the region, the division, the business unit, the organization, customers, competitors, government, family, friends, and the digital social network all contend for attention in the mind and heart of a leader. And in this complexity, nothing is clear, and nothing is easy. The leader, no matter if a first-time leader or the Chief Executive Officer of a Global 5,000 company, is faced with the same challenges of having multiple affiliations and a lack of ability to make choices independent of the cascading pressures of multiple stakeholders. For these many reasons, leadership autonomy has been taken away from leaders and has been replaced by “safe” decision making and the constant mind-numbing managing to the needs of multiple stakeholders all who threaten quietly or overtly to negatively impact the leader when things go astray which often will happen. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, when you hear the magic words, “someone needs to be accountable for this,” that means some leader someplace is going to be given some very negative feedback.

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One of the most popular financial metrics used in businesses is EBITDA. EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, and Depreciation. For most managers, they understand it as a metric that measures profit and provides insights into the “controllables” of a business or business unit.

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Marshawn Lynch is one of my favorite people.  The term “Beast Mode” was invented for him as it perfectly describes his rugged approach of being a 6-foot tall, 220-pound NFL running back for the Seattle Seahawks. His style is to power around, over, and through defenders punishing anyone who gets in his way of achieving the ultimate goal of scoring touchdowns. Watching him perform is extremely entertaining and reminds me of the good old days of tough, grind-it-out (American) football before passing made up 80% of the offensive plays.

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