Fifteenth letter from Michael Mrak to Andreas Bruckmüller Dear Andreas, At the end of your fourteenth letter you described where our media are heading right now. I have left this implicit question lying longer than any other you have handed me, and I…
Part of the series Leading Through Turbulence. What separates the companies a crisis surprises from the companies a crisis merely tests? The reputation of risk management deserves an honest hearing first, because it is poor and often earned. In many…
Why change programmes need investment discipline Fewer than one in three transformations improves performance and keeps the improvement in place. McKinsey has tracked the rate across fifteen years of global surveys, and it has barely moved. Bent Flyvbjerg’s Oxford database of…
Part of the series Leading Through Turbulence. How much certainty may a leader wait for before a decision stops being prudent and starts being late? The case for waiting deserves an honest hearing, because it rests on real virtues. More…
Fourteenth letter from Andreas Bruckmüller to Michael Mrak Dear Michael, Your letter is one of the darkest so far. You ask whether the planet is finished, you reach for the law as the last lever that still moves, and between your lines I…
Part of the series Leading Through Turbulence. Why should a leader spend scarce hours on planning methods for futures that may never arrive? The question deserves an honest answer, because the hours are real and a method can look academic.…
Thirteenth letter from Michael Mrak to Andreas Bruckmüller Dear Andreas, At the end of your twelfth letter you handed me a task, and I accept it the way one accepts a task one suspects will exceed one’s strength. How do…
More than four out of five corporate reorganisations fail to deliver the value they were meant to, in the time that was planned, and about one in ten leave the company measurably worse off, according to a McKinsey survey. Those numbers…
Twelfth letter from Andreas Bruckmüller to Michael Mrak Dear Michael, In your last letter you ended with two demands held together: patience with people, rigour with method, both at the same time. It is the hardest sentence in your letter, and the truest.…
The kinds of crisis a business faces, and how to recognise each one before it is too late Part of the series Leading Through Turbulence. The word crisis is used freely these days. But what, by definition, is a crisis?…