Issue 82, Spring 2016

In this issue
Creating a Strategy That Works, Raising Your Digital IQ, 10 Principles of Organizational Culture, and More.
Cover story
- Strategy & LeadershipThe most farsighted enterprises have mastered five unconventional practices for building and using distinctive capabilities.
- Organizations & People
10 principles of organizational culture
Companies can tap their natural advantage when they focus on changing a few important behaviors, enlist informal leaders, and harness the power of employees’ emotions. See also Video: What Is Culture? - Thought Leaders
Mike Christian on mindfulness and mental energy
The UNC Kenan-Flagler professor explains the science of self-control, and how it affects your performance at work. See also “How Mindfulness Can Prevent Retaliation at Work.” - Strategy & Leadership
Danaher’s Instruments of Change
An s+b Roundtable: Highly focused and diversified, this industrial company grows through acquisition, customer-facing innovation, and continuous improvement. - Thought Leaders
The Thought Leader Interview: Jonathan Haidt
The NYU social psychologist says that the ethical risks for a business depend on its ingrained cultural attitudes.
Features
- Technology
Raising Your Digital IQ
A global survey of business leaders shows how the smartest companies develop and wield their technology strategy. - Technology
A strategist’s guide to blockchain
Our annual review of the year’s best business books. : An Expensive Breakdown in Communications • : Leading by Biographical Example • : The Machine Age • : Capturing Attention – and Data – in a Digital Age• : What a Character! • : The (Very) Political Economy • : The Search for Innovation
Leading Ideas
- Strategy & Leadership
Secrets of the Activist Manager
Outside investors have their megaphones. But insiders have a more powerful tool for creating value: deep knowledge of their business and customers. - Innovation
In Search of Ingenuity
The quiet heroes of innovation do the little things that bring big ideas to life. - Business Literature
Breaking Bad Barriers
In her new book, journalist Gillian Tett convincingly shows how companies can be constrained by silos that inhibit collaboration — and how they can break out of them. - Technology
Mutually Assured Disruption
Why established companies should join forces with upstart competitors. - Marketing, Media & Sales
s+b Trend Watch: New Opportunities in Entertainment and Media
A look at spending on media in cities worldwide today, and in the near future.
Essays
- Technology
Enterprise Architecture Planning 2.0
A new approach to digital strategy reinvents legacy IT by aligning it to a company’s capabilities. - Organizations & People
The Mindful Board
Directors facing complex corporate governance challenges can develop their capacity to think together about the implications of their decisions.
Books in Brief
- Business Literature
The Margin of Safety
In his new book, Wall Street Journal veteran Greg Ip makes the counterintuitive argument that the preventive efforts that makes us safe can encourage dangerous risk taking. - Business Literature
The Empathy Solution
Ever-smarter computers may be poised to steal the jobs of a rising number of people. In a new book, Geoff Colvin argues that humans can deploy a secret weapon: their ability to care. - Business Literature
The Fed’s Original Intent
In his new book, Roger Lowenstein describes how financial crises and political tensions spurred the creation of the U.S.’s central bank. - Business Literature
My Tunes
In his new book, Stephen Witt offers a compelling tale of how music industry executives, technologists, and pirates upended the business of selling recorded music.
Recent Research
- s+b Blogs
One Bad Apple Spoils the Company
Don’t let the performance of superstars distract you from the damage toxic employees inflict.