Industrial sector

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

History is bound to repeat itself.

High-definition televisions (HDTVs) should, by now, be a huge success. Philips, Sony, and Thompson invested billions of dollars to develop TV sets with...

One firm in India wanted to understand what leads workers to make unsafe choices, and why unsafe conditions go unreported.

This time, what's good for GM really is what's good for America.

Lessons from car dealerships.

As ports, highways, railways, and airports run out of room, the world faces a looming transportation crisis. The current meltdown masks the threat, but...

I am in Rome, Italy. Gas prices here are roughly $6 a gallon and many of the cars on roads look like two-door golf carts. As far back as 1976, Italians...

Technology transfer isn’t second-class innovation.

It could be part office, part home, and part vehicle.

Powerful brands have distinct personalities: Duracell’s batteries last a long time. Volvos are safe in a crash. But even dominant brands can fade if they fall prey to multiple personality disorder. Consider General Motors. What’s the difference between a Chevrolet, a Pontiac, and a Buick? The company has recently woken up to the problem; last […]

For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.

Lessons from NASA and Ford.

I like Bob Lutz. I worked with him for three years (2006-2008) during my work with Rick Wagoner and his senior team on the attempt to turnaround the fortunes...

Fewer drivers could mean less revenue.

Innovative technologies become commercial products in two ways: reduction to practice of scientific knowledge and incremental improvement governed by...

Procter & Gamble’s radical strategy of open innovation now produces more than 35% of the company’s innovations and billions of dollars in revenue.

Richard Serra makes rolled-steel sculptures so massive that New York’s Museum of Modern Art designed a gallery to support their weight. He’s been close to the industry that creates his signature material for half a century: Decades before achieving critical and popular acclaim, he joined a U.S. Steel rivet gang to put himself through Yale. […]

Lessons from an engineering and construction company.

In my experience, there are three perpetual business puzzles—change, people, and technology—and the trick is figuring out how to get them working for you instead of against you. My own approach is to try to control change—anticipate it, master it, exploit it—by putting people and technology at the head of my list of priorities. Exploiting […]