leadership skills Archives

Resisting the Escalation Trap

Resisting the Escalation Trap Separating Smart Persistence from Stubborn Commitment Issue 223, July 31, 2025 How do you balance what you think your customers need versus what they want? Let’s say you are ahead of the trend curve in your industry, and are launching an event that is so forward-thinking that it challenges current status quo thinking. Here’s a real-life example. In the past, a marketing director produced an event for CFOs on sustainability initiatives and cost-savings and how they…

Kevin Novak

July 30, 2025

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

The Costs of Driving Efficiency

The Costs of Driving Efficiency Organizational Transformations We Live Through But Don’t Notice Issue 221, July 17, 2025 What is the cost of driving efficiency? In the process of ensuring the sustainable profitability of an organization, the business model becomes subtly reshaped. It may not be obvious at the time, but short-term financial and structural decisions in the interests of long-term success remold the workforce, the organizational culture, and can trigger larger socio-cultural trends. Rewriting History Historically, organizations seek to…

Kevin Novak

July 17, 2025

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Measuring What Matters: Navigating the KPI Labyrinth in an Era of Information Overload

Measuring What Matters: Navigating the KPI Labyrinth in an Era of Information Overload Issue 215, June 5, 2025 Let’s get to the bottom line up front: In a business environment drowning in data, the organizations that will thrive are those that master the art of strategic data curation instead of collection, asking “why” before “what,” and building KPI ecosystems that connect rather than isolate. Last week we offered advice and some philosophical thought about leading and managing in today’s whiplash…

Kevin Novak

June 5, 2025

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Interconnectedness: A Practical Guide for Today’s Leaders and Managers

Interconnectedness: A Practical Guide for Today’s Leaders and Managers Issue 200, February 20, 2025 Welcome to the 200th issue of 2040’s Ideas and Innovations Newsletter. We thank you for your readership for nearly four years and your feedback that the themes and content resonate and help you. You inspire us to always move forward. All our newsletters are available on SubStack. If you know others who would benefit, please share our publication with them. 20Forty’s Substack> Connected and Networked As…

Kevin Novak

February 20, 2025

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

The Power of Optimism in Organizational Storytelling

The Power of Optimism in Organizational Storytelling Issue 174, August 22, 2024 We become the stories we tell as do organizations (companies, governments, non-profits and the like). The more we tell them and elaborate on the narrative, the more we believe them to be true and represent who we are in our purpose, relationships and how we use our energy mentally and physically. These stories can become family legends, cultural origin stories, national histories, and an epic organizational tool. Psychologist…

Kevin Novak

August 22, 2024

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Preventive and Supportive Questions

Preventive and Supportive Questions Issue 127, September 21, 2023 Chances are when things go wrong it’s because of poor communication. You’d think that we would have figured out by now how to communicate with each other effectively. All the strategy in the world goes down the tubes if you can’t speak it. And managing a team starts and stops with listening and communicating clearly and empathetically. The biggest landmine? Asking questions. Do it wrong and the conversation comes to a…

Kevin Novak

September 20, 2023

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Planning Ahead

Planning Ahead Issue 123, August 24, 2023 With all the data at our disposal, why aren’t we connecting the dots to ensure better outcomes? To be more specific, let’s look at our healthcare system – and you can use it as a metaphor for your own strategic planning. Next Gen Career Shifts Take two trends: the US population is aging and so many next gens are more interested in entrepreneurship and tech startups than medicine as a career. What are…

Kevin Novak

August 22, 2023

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

Hubris – Ideas and Innovations from 2040

Hubris Issue 115, June 29, 2023 Every day we assess the potential rewards along with the real and perceived risks of the situations, desires, tasks, and ideas we confront. We may not be consciously aware of these assessments, but they are happening all the time. Our ever-expanding technical prowess has resulted in new tools, more efficient production, opportunities to transform ideas into reality, and new platforms to engage and connect. We also have access to expanding our knowledge and deferring…

Kevin Novak

June 28, 2023

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

The Distortion of Time – Ideas and Innovations from 2040

The Distortion of Time Issue 103, April 13, 2023 With our celebration and awe of emerging tech (think generative AI), there is a basic issue that we rarely consider: the distortion of time. What we mean is that we are in such a hurry to develop and adopt new tech that we frequently leapfrog over its actual relevance, usefulness or even its consequences to our organizations and business models. Let alone do we address the potential legal or policy issues…

Kevin Novak

April 13, 2023

Ideas and Innovations Newsletter

What Were They Thinking? – Ideas and Innovations from 2040

What Were They Thinking? Issue 101, March 30, 2023 Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, asked a profound question referring to the ancients in Easter Island. When they cut down the last tree on the island, what were they thinking? Seriously, what sane society would make a valuable natural resource extinct with one final hatchet job? Which in turn made their people extinct? Or how about a more complicated social problem replacing the US draft with an all-volunteer military, ultimately making…

Kevin Novak

March 30, 2023

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