Archive for January, 2009
On Thursday, February 5th, the Association for Corporate Growth is holding their annual West Coast M&A Conference. I’ll be presenting on the topic of “M&A Integration…Shaken Not Stirred.” Too many M&A deals end with results that don’t justify the cost or effort of the transaction. Often this happens because companies try too carefully to not disrupt the existing orgnaizaitons and never get to the true value of combining companies. The event is at the SF Palace Hotel and will run from 8am to 6:30pm. If you are interested in attending, you can click here for more information.
BIG Ideas to BIG Results (FT Press/Pearson Hall) just made two top busienss book award lists for 2008! It is exciting to receive these honors, especially when thinking about hard we worked to create a useful resoruce for such an important and common business problem…too many ideas, too little results. We appreciate the recognition form the two organizations as well as all of the people who have bought the book as well.
800-CEO-Read: Best Business Books on Innovation
http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/008611.html?blog_id=1
The National Best Book Awards 2009, in the category of Business Management and Leadership
http://www.usabooknews.com/bestbooksawards2008.html
In our work, there always seem to be simple answers to complex problems, if you do your homework. And, it is quite often that what seem like huge and complex problems are simply replays of very common and previously-faced challenges. I recenlty saw the most simple explanation for the auto industry crisis and it was written years ago.
Usually Dilbert is the one comic that truly captures the tragically funny (i.e., would be funny if it wasn’t describing my actual professional life) things that happen in business every day. In this case, though, an old Calivin and Hobbes cartoon perfectly describes the auto industry crisis better than any strategic analysis our firm or any other analyst could do. (click the comic to enlarge the image)
It’s funny. But, it is also pointing out a repeating pattern that needs to be broken in the auto industry immediately and across other businesses as well. Take a quick read. Laugh, laugh uncomfortably becuase it is too close to the truth, or laugh it off, but take a moment to read it and consider how you might avoid the same issues in your business.
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.