Pre-1992, even loyal customers struggled to recall the insurance company’s name—the “American Family Life Assurance Company.” But today, customer and non-customers alike, indeed anyone in the United States. or Japan who watches television, cannot take a summer stroll past a park pond without thinking “Aflac.” How did a small, family-owned, run-of-the-mill insurance company from Georgia […]
Category: Contributors
Where, Oh Where, Is My Tata Nano?
Learn to Use Reverse Innovation I kept my eyes on the blurring, chaotic stream of Mumbai traffic, looking for the famed “Tata Nano”—the cheapest car in the world. To be honest, I don’t think I saw one, but then again, I’m not sure I would recognize it crammed between moto-rickshaws and the tiny black Soviet-era-looking […]
Computers and the Crash: Human Intuition Cannot Be Replaced
Last week’s one-day stock market plunge nearly ruined our kitchen. We are remodeling our house and planned to sell stock to cover the cost of kitchen cabinets, but when we called our broker to initiate the trade we learned our shares had dropped 20% in just a few hours! We knew something strange was happening—the […]
Haar to heart: An inconvenient truth—the federal government, not Wall Street, deserves the greatest blame
If one were to combine elements of Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel The Castle, Edward Albee’s Zoo Story and the Spanish Inquisition, one would have the recent congressional hearings on alleged malfeasance by Wall Street investment firms. The persecutory behavior and theatrics displayed by a number of Senate inquisitors were matched only by their appalling ignorance […]
Find an Expansive View
Picking the right scale for your mission is an art. Define your purpose too narrowly and soon run out of aspirations to fill. Set your sights too high and you risk de-motivating your people. To illustrate this concept, I want to examine two seemingly similar companies: inVentiv Health (VTIV) and PDI Inc. (PDII). In 2002 […]
Getting Your Mojo Back
Their unprecedented winning streak was about to end. After 77 wins, the most by any women’s college basketball team, the women of the University of Connecticut Huskies walked off the court with a 20-12 deficit against Stanford at half time. It seemed clear the Huskies had lost their mojo. How would your organization respond to […]
Haar to heart: The Economy—So How Are We Doing Now?
While many analysts agree that the recession is over, there is no consensus as to when the recovery will kick in. Put ten economists in a room and you’ll get thirteen different opinions. Since there is very little “value-free” economic research, a great deal of data collection, analysis and reporting is partisan to the nth […]
Haar to heart: Hey, Dubai—Hi and Goodbye?
The surprises just keep coming: Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford did not hike the Appalachian Trail. Michael Jackson actually had a drug problem. And now: one of the world’s richest nations—the Las Vegas of the Arab world, Dubai—cannot pay its bills. But is this really a […]
Haar to heart: Cuba – Straight Talk on the US Embargo
Were the embargo lifted tomorrow, U.S. manufacturers and wholesalers would not be able to ship directly to private distributors and retail stores. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the 47th year since a ban on trade was instituted by the U.S. government. While the debate still rages as to whether […]
Haar to heart: The quest for talent–a never-ending challenge
Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google have it. Fred Smith of FedEx, Steve Jobs of Apple and Carlos Ghosn of Renault and Nissan also have it. Vikram Pandit of Citicorp, Jeffrey Immelt of GE and Bob Nardelli, recent CEO of Chrysler and Home Depot before that, do not. I am speaking of talent. The 19th […]