Business

We believe innovation should be a continuous activity. It should be a capability that you are developing and attending to regularly. It requires a kind of fodder of new problems all the time in order to be refining and developing.

Co-Author of "Ideaflow" & Design Thinking Expert at Stanford

Disruption is treated as an event, and it is a constant and that is the interesting sort of fallacy. As humans we want this state of consistency but if we are taking it as a hypothesis, we are constantly being disrupted, constantly changing and the groundwork we are standing on is shifting all the time.

The single best way to have a great idea is to produce lots of ideas. The number of new ideas your organization can produce is a metric for its ability to generate novel solutions to any given problem. Your ideaflow is the most crucial business metric that you've never considered.

Co-Author of "Ideaflow" & Design Thinking Expert at Stanford

Taoism speaks to the interconnectedness of the universe, and how everything and everyone has an impact on everything and everyone. Governance must widen its' perspectives to think about the implications, and ramifications, of business in society.

Alibaba's vision statement includes a mention of how long it wants to last, and that is specifically 102 years. Jack Ma wanted Alibaba to be the only internet company that spanned three centuries.

Jack Ma encouraged the entire company to practice and learn Tai Chi in their free time, it is a practice that allows one to embrace the seeming contradictions in the world, and in business. Let me give you some examples – how do you become a profitable business while also doing good for society?

Every business makes money as a secondary purpose. It's the coincidental result of creating customer value and changing the world in some way that people are willing to pay for and find valuable.

NFL Wide Receiver for Tampa Bay Buccaneers & Super Bowl Champion

When your business becomes a unicorn and heads for the stratosphere, there's a temptation to slide into the primary activity of the business being turning capital, and so customer focus can get lost. Once you stop putting customer first, the competition will destroy you.

NFL Wide Receiver for Tampa Bay Buccaneers & Super Bowl Champion

The only real competitive advantage that's durable is cost and innovation – as long as innovation happens along the trajectory that takes into account stakeholders, not just shareholders.

NFL Wide Receiver for Tampa Bay Buccaneers & Super Bowl Champion

The high debt ratios also masked the zombie households, zombie corporates, zombie businesses, zombie banks, zombie shadow banks, zombie governments and zombie countries. They never went bankrupt.

Economist known for predicting the 2008 financial crisis.

One of the greatest myths in the lives of the people I coach is, 'I will be happy when…' as if there is some place to go to. There's only one book that ends with the phrase happily ever after, that's a fairy-tale.

World's Most Cited Executive Coach & Leadership Development Expert

Entrepreneurial businesses innovate, change, evolve and meet customer needs… it's about creating things that people value and love.

Nobody will fund innovation in perpetuity – you need to make money; you need to deliver value to your customers. When people ask me whether we want growth or profit, I say yes! Both!

Positions are what people say they want, interests are why they want the things they want. In most deadlocked negotiations, people haven't really got down to understanding what's driving the other side.

Negotiation expert and co-director of Harvard's Program on Negotiation

I look at every negotiation as an opportunity to solve a problem between me and the other negotiator. They are not my adversary – I need them – and they need me.

Negotiation expert and co-director of Harvard's Program on Negotiation

The more you're negotiating, the more you're staying at the table and engaging – the more information reveals itself. Value may be hidden initially because the other side doesn't know how to bring it up… how to share it with you without you taking advantage of it… as comfort builds, you gather information, and share it too, that becomes a critical part of the process.

Negotiation expert and co-director of Harvard's Program on Negotiation