BLOG OF ADAM HARTUNG
Perception – The Boat that Wasn’t There
I was worried. I couldn’t find my son and his grandfather who were supposed to be fishing together. I looked out behind my father-in-law’s house at the boat dock where they should have been standing to fish in the lake. And they weren’t there. I knew they weren’t out...
Blockbuster’s Heroic CEO
It is ironic that Blockbuster would announce the extension of CEO John Antioco's contract for 5 years on the same day that they reveal a $1.42 billion loss. Reuters: The company posted a quarterly operating profit well below analysts' estimates even before $1.5...
Quote: When society requires to be rebuilt …
"When society requires to be rebuilt there is no use in attempting to rebuild it on the old plan. No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought." — John Stuart Mill...
Phoenixionary: Success Formula
Definition: How a company wins in the marketplace. It includes beliefs about who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why we do the things we do. Early in the lifecycle, it serves as the source of continued growth and prosperity. Later in the lifecycle it becomes...
Sports Clips, a Great Business Idea
Haircuts. Now there's a market with nothing new to be added, right? Don’t say that to Sports Clips, which has been identified as one of Entrepreneur magazine’s fastest growing franchises. This company is a great example of looking at the same boring market as everyone...
Blockbuster vs. Netflix et. al.
Blockbuster’s competitors are making it difficult for the company to make strides toward profitable growth. Netflix, the leading online DVD rental business, just announced a price cut in an attempt to double the size of its business (a bad move, but that’s another...
Blockbuster’s Big Plan
What do you think; does Blockbuster's Success Formula have a chance of being saved? The company IS innovating and CEO Anitoco's recent investor tour was centered around convincing shareholders that the company has a plan to reinvigorate the business... but really, who...
Phoenixionary: Defend & Extend Management
Definition: Mind-sets and practices related to establishing a Success Formula, then improving on it and protecting it against competitors by doing it better, faster, or cheaper. D&E Management sees the historical Success Formula as the solution to the problems that...
Introducing the “Phoenixionary”
We’ve added a new feature to our website, what we’re calling the “Phoenixionary” (see the links in the left-hand column). This is a dictionary of terms that we’ve used in the Phoenix Principle along with terms other thought leaders have used in describing a new model...
Where are you in the lifecycle?
As companies age, they lose their flexibility and their appeal to customers in the marketplace. We have described this aging process with a metaphor and created the River Lifecycle Model. Your organization's (product, business unit, process, etc.) location on the...
Quote: The dissenter is…
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. —Archibald MacLeish, 20th century writer, poet
Scared money…
I heard a radio announcer say the phrase "Scared money is dead money." How true! During the tough times and periods of uncertainty do you play it safe or take risks to take advantage of the disruption?
Belo’s woes part 2 – Problems vs. Challenges
Belo's problems continue with a whole raft of shareholder lawsuits. So what do you do when you have a problem? You solve them. So, when Belo admitted to the inflated circulation, it set out to solve the problem. They did that by finding guilty parties and firing them,...
$25 Billion in a day???!!!!!
It isn’t every day that a company loses $25 billion (yes BILLION) dollars of stock value in a single day… or a company has the courage to do the right thing even knowing they’re going to get hammered for doing so. But that’s what Merck did. Merck & Co. on Thursday...
New Metaphors
As we move into the new millennium, we're also moving into new models of organization--interdependent, networked, organic. This change will call for different metaphors than those we're used to, which are dominated by machine references and war words. I think women...
Quote: All great truths…
All great truths begin as blasphemies. —George Bernard Shaw
Belo’s Embarrassing Misstatement
A colleague described his new employer, LRN, to me over lunch last week. LRN is one of a growing number of companies devoted to helping companies strengthen their ethical standards and compliance. In light of Sarbanes-Oxley and the post-Enron climate, businesses such...
Napster – Seek Profits Now!
Napster absolutely must start making its profits now—regardless of what it does with its Success Formula. This will require that the company focus less on growth and more on efficiency and effectiveness so that it can make its profits now. But wait, you say. Isn’t...
A New Life for Napster?
After terrorizing the recording industry and almost single-handedly ushering in the future of the music business, Napster is going mainstream. Gone are the rule-breaking, paradigm-busting pioneers—replaced by traditional thinkers and strict adherence to the law....
Who bought the donuts?
Krispy Kreme is dead in the water. Two years ago a friend of mine was looking at the stock price chart for Krispy Kreme Donuts (KKD) and asked me if it was still a good investment. The stock had gone from it’s IPO of around $10 in early 2000 to $45 by end of 2001. Was...
Trackbacks/Pingbacks