Leaders and Strategies in Real Life: 4/25/17

  |   Leaders and Strategies in Real Life Print Friendly and PDF

Instead of studying leadership, why not spend some time studying leaders and strategies in the wild? You can learn a lot from leadership experts, but you always see the leader and what he or she does through the expert’s personal lens. Supplement that learning with studying real leaders in real life situations and draw your own conclusions. The posts in this series will help you.

Every week I’ll point you to articles by and about real leaders in real situations and to articles about how real companies are faring in the marketplace. Read them. Think about them. Draw your own lessons and conclusions from them. Then try to apply those lessons in your own real life.

This week I’m pointing you to articles about Farmers Business Network, NYU Langone Medical Center, Walmart, Westfield Santa Anita Mall, and Facebook.

From Fast Company: Why Farmers Business Network Is One Of The Most Innovative Companies Of 2017

“The farming collective is using big data to empower independent growers and fight Big Ag.”

From Eric J. McNulty, Nathaniel Foote, and Douglas Wilson: Management Lessons from One Hospital’s Dramatic Turnaround

“The dramatic turnaround engineered by Grossman offers lessons for any manager seeking to overcome chronic underperformance. Confronting an entrenched, entitled workforce — the tenured faculty in an academic medical center — he and his team succeeded in raising performance standards throughout the enterprise, while simultaneously increasing commitment levels. The result has been significant improvements across key financial, performance, regulatory, and quality indicators:”

From Denise Lee Yohn: Walmart Won’t Stay on Top If Its Strategy Is “Copy Amazon”

“Walmart does need to shore up its e-commerce capabilities, but its attempts to out-Amazon Amazon aren’t a winning strategy. For one thing, by offering the new shipping service, Walmart is really only playing catch-up. Lore himself described free shipping as table stakes.”

From Shan Li: As other malls die off, this one in Arcadia focuses on Asian shoppers

“When Taiwanese menswear brand SST&C opened its first U.S. store last year, the company bypassed glitzy shopping hubs such as Beverly Hills or South Coast Plaza in favor of a mall tucked into the San Gabriel Valley. What Westfield Santa Anita lacks in name recognition, it makes up for with one huge edge: a growing stable of Asian retailers catering to its well-heeled Asian community.”

From Farhad Manjoo: Why Facebook Keeps Beating Every Rival: It’s the Network, of Course

“For years now, the world has been doubting Mr. Zuckerberg. Facebook, they said, would never beat Myspace. Then Facebook was going to get a run for its money from every other social network — Twitter, Pinterest and more. Hey, could it survive Google’s onslaught? Could it survive its own initial public offering? How would Facebook adjust to mobile? What about live video? And then there was Snapchat. By turning the smartphone camera into a communications platform, Snapchat created a novel and compelling social experience. Teenagers couldn’t get enough of it. And teenagers are the future. If Facebook lost teenagers, game over. Hahaha. In the big picture none of these things really made a dent in Mr. Zuckerberg’s expanding kingdom.”

Join The Conversation

What People Are Saying

There are no comments yet, why not be the first to leave a comment?