03 / WORKING EXAMPLES

Working Examples

Case Studies in Emerging Economies

For the International Finance Corporation, we designed a report format that showed not just what their client companies accomplished, but what they were thinking. The companies, based in Africa and South Asia, ranged from universities to healthcare providers to pharmaceutical firms, all demonstrating the power of entrepreneurial thinking for social and financial benefit. The leaders’ words and the data on results make the claims credible.

“I had grown up in Ashaiman, and I knew why people didn’t like hospitals. It is a low-income community with a lot of superstitions and traditional beliefs. Going to the hospital was not a great experience for them. Government hospitals were overcrowded and were rude to patients in treatment. Privately owned hospitals were beyond their financial reach. So, we decided to create a clinic that would treat poor people with appreciation.”

Dr. Wisdom Amegbletor, founder, New Crystal Health Services, Ashaiman, Ghana — Read the IFC Case Study ↗

The Curiosity Curve

Debra Clary had the data: the higher people scored on metrics for being curious, the higher the financial performance and stronger their career path—but only up to a point. We helped her articulate the “curiosity setpoint:” the optimal amount of curiosity to innovate without distraction.

During a pause in the presentation, the CEO leaned over and asked: “Is curiosity innate or can it be learned?”

“I, being the curious person I am, responded: ‘I don't know, but I'll look into it.’ Fast forward a few weeks to my next conversation: ‘Oh, by the way, curiosity can be learned.’ That simple statement shifted everything.”

Debra Clary — The Curiosity Curve ↗

University Hospitals

Living and Leading with Love

We are developing the full-scale thought leadership infrastructure for “Living and Leading with Love” in healthcare: a business trade book, an ongoing substack, a series of videos, a playbook of exercises and examples, with multiple authors aligned around a movement, all coordinated as one body of work.

Listen to The Illuminators podcast ↗

strategy+business

Art Kleiner oversaw strategy+business as editor-in-chief from 2005 to 2020, helping it grow to a million readers. Published by consulting firms, it was frequently compared to Harvard Business Review. Among the thought leaders Art worked with as contributors there are Marshall Goldsmith, Amy Edmondson, David Lancefield, Sally Helgesen, Stewart Brand, A.G. Lafley, Roger Martin, and Reid Hoffman.

Fifth Discipline Fieldbook series

Art Kleiner was editorial director of the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook series with Peter Senge and colleagues, published between 1994 and 2010 and still used by practitioners worldwide. Now we are working with Peter to help organize and launch a new Living Fieldbook Project for System Leadership.

QUESTIONS / 01–08

Some of the questions we ask thought leaders

01What is your purpose?: Authors are not always clear about what they want to do and why. Is it to raise an idea that won’t let go? To promote a business? To gain recognition? Or to be included in a particular conversation? The clearer you are about your priorities, the more likely you are to achieve them.
02What are your assets as an author?: Possibilities include your business, teaching, research, network, and life story. You can deliberately, thoughtfully, choose which of these assets become part of your public and intellectual persona, based on what you’re trying to accomplish.
03Where does your audience go for information?: There are two ways to reach people: who you know, and who knows you. Move your work to the places where people are already looking. Get mentioned in ways that attract AI attention.
04What is the unrealized framework underlying your work?: Let’s identify what Oliver Wendell Holmes called the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
05What’s the people side of your story?: Behind every technology story is a story about business. Behind every business story is a story of human culture. Can you tell the stories of the people involved in your breakthroughs?
06How rich is your network?: It can feel lonely being a thought leader. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s create the conversations that move everyone’s ideas forward. Ideas don’t travel through gatekeepers. They travel through connection.
07Are you paying enough attention to your subject, your audience, and your own voice?: They each have integrity. Its hard to focus on all three at once; you have to cycle between them. We have methods for helping you do that.
08What part of your message makes people uncomfortable?: Love. Accountability. Inclusion. Impulse. Sometimes you have to say the thing that’s hard to say.