Call the doctor!!!…. diagnose interferences in your ecosystem by asking the “right” questions
By Herb Nold and Lukas Michel

Posted on adminLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Richard Straub in his starter article for this year’s Global Peter Drucker Forum, What Management Needs to Become in an Era of Ecosystems made some excellent observations. Straub correctly, in our view, suggested that the ecosystems are not new quoting numerous theorists whose ideas were shaped primarily during the last century. However, we suggest that organizational ecosystems have always existed and just given a name in the last 50 or so years. What has changed since the end of the last century is the speed at which conditions change primarily due to advancements in technology; the internet, AI, social media, and more. Traditional measures like profits, market share, ROI, stock price, etc. are outcomes from […]

Could partnering capability be the Achilles’ heel of ecosystems?
by Jan Twombly, CSAP and Jeff Shuman, CSAP, PhD

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Partnering in the ecosystem era For any of the transformative effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to be fully realized, it will take an ecosystem of partners agilely working together in an orchestrated, yet open model. To add to the complexity, every customer scenario needs a different mix of partners, requiring stewardship of the ecosystem to have the partnerships to call upon when needed. Thus, technology and partnering in combination are today’s business imperative. Ecosystem partnering brings together multiple companies with different capabilities and resources, different business models, and increasingly, various industry orientations to provide a holistic “solution” for a use case or specific customer situation. Numerous partnering models and value propositions are possible. Drucker […]

Ecosystems: a new frontier for de-bureaucratization?
by Erhard Friedberg

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Describing in his HBR article of May-June 1993 the challenges an ecological approach to business strategy brings with it, James Moore emphasized that we have to keep in mind that business ecosystems are not co-evolving organisms, but social systems the larger patterns of which are maintained by a complex network of choices made by real people with their bounded rationalities. The obvious implication of this remark is that when talking about ecosystems, we have to leave the lofty heights of strategy, targets, goals and corporate communication, to focus instead on what Philip Selznick has called the operative systems on which the functioning of ecosystems will depend. The view from the top argues that the functioning […]

Wading through the swamp: the radical power of ecosystems-as-processes
by David Hurst

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum

The respected management scholar, Donald Schön, began his 1987 book, The Education of the Reflective Practitioner, as follows: “In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, management problems lend themselves to solution through the application of research-based theory and technique. In the swampy lowland, messy confusing problems defy technical solution. The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large, however great their technical interest might be, while in the swamp lie the issues of greatest human concern. The practitioner must choose. Shall he remain on the high ground […]

Incubating Entrepreneurialism
by Piero Formica & Nick Hixson

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Defining the new entrepreneurship: how it’s different from the current one A gap between entrepreneurship and art has arisen over past industrial revolutions. New entrepreneurship aims to close the gap. It is imbued with entrepreneurialism, transplanting into the socio-economic sphere Brunelleschi’s Renaissance perspective in the art world. Current entrepreneurship is in the STEM field, following the Fordist production environment, characterised by the bureaucracy of the 20th century. Know How To Do now has to be Knowing How To Think, Imagine and Understand. This requires familiarity with the Arts. STEM changes to STEAM. In the new entrepreneurship mode, innovationists take over from incrementalists. Digitisation joins science and engineering with design and arts, enabling creativity in human-centred […]

Churchill didn’t work at McKinsey
by Sebastian Woller

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum

One of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century was Sir Winston Churchill. As the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he helped to lead the world to victory during the Second World War. Churchill’s career was instructive. When he turned 25, he was elected to parliament and began his career as a statesman in the House of Commons. Despite an aristocratic background, lacking a prestigious list of backers to vouch for his talent, Churchill had to earn public recognition. As a leader, he possessed the necessary capability to inspire and empower other people. Today, thumbing through the pages of his books, I try to glean insight from both his decision-making skills and leadership qualities. Since Churchill, ideas about leadership have changed. Unlike in his day, social media plays a vital role in “proving” […]

#NewLeadership: Thriving in the Intelligent Age
by Dr. Carsten Linz

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Based on the discussions at the recent Global Peter Drucker Forum, dubbed “the Davos of Management”, one can conclude that: It’s the dawn of a new leadership. A NewLeadership approach is required to transport organizations successfully into the intelligent age – or disappear as darkness disappears with the onset of light. We conducted a three-year research for our book Radical Business Model Transformation and worked with hundreds of top leaders to distill both the mental model and next-practice capabilities of NewLeadership. We found that top leaders underestimate the gap between the actual and target leadership approach in their organization. Closing this gap will have a double leverage effect. So, what distinguishes the winners in the […]

Drucker Forum 2018: 3 Habits Leaders Should Break
by Alex Adamopoulos

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum

One of my favorite presentations at this past November’s Global Peter Drucker Forum was from Marshall Goldsmith, a leadership coach and the author of, among other books, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.” As the title suggests, the qualities that make leaders successful as individuals can later become obstacles to their success as leaders. Ascending to a leadership position requires prioritizing your individual success. Along your journey to a leadership role, you’ll likely face tests – both literal and figurative – that require you to prove how smart and capable you are as an individual. But great leaders need to work in the best interest of the people they manage, and not themselves. […]