Paul J. H. Schoemaker Books

How organizations can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act faster when the time is right; with rich examples including Adobe, MasterCard, and Amazon. When turbulence is the new normal, an organization's survival depends on vigilant leadership that can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act quickly when the time is right. In See Sooner, Act Faster, strategy experts George Day and Paul Schoemaker offer tools for thriving when digital advances intensify turbulence. Vigilant firms have greater foresight than their rivals, while vulnerable firms often miss early signals of external threats and organizational challenges. Charles Schwab, for example, was early to see and act on the promise of "robo-advisors"; Honeywell, on the other hand, stumbled when Nest Labs came out first with a "smart" thermostat. Day and Schoemaker show leaders how to assess their vigilance capabilities and cultivate insight and foresight throughout their organizations. They draw on a range of cases, including Adobe and Intuit's move to the cloud, Shell's investment in clean energy, and MasterCard's early recognition of digital challenges. Day and Schoemaker describe how to allocate the scarce resource of attention, how to detect weak signals and separate them from background noise, and how to respond strategically before competitors do. The challenge is not just to act faster but to act wisely, and the authors suggest ways to create dynamic portfolios of options. Finally, they offer an action agenda, with tips for fostering vigilance and agility throughout an organization. The rewards are stronger market positions, higher profits and growth, more motivated employees, and organization longevity. -- Provided by publisher

"Executives rate decision-making ability as the most important business skill, but few people have the training they need to make good decisions consistently. Becoming a good decision-maker is like training to be a top athlete: Just as the best coaches use training methods to help athletes develop proper techniques and avoid mistakes, Dr. J. Edward Russo and Dr. Paul J.H. Schoemaker have developed a program that can help you avoid 'decision traps' - the ten common decision-making errors that most people make over and over again. Dr. Russo and Dr. Schoemaker have improved the decision-making skills of thousands of Fortune 500 executives with this program. Now you can use their decision-making techniques to make sure that you last bad decision was your last bad decision." -- back cover

From emerging technologies to changes in consumer tastes, tremendous opportunities and threats often begin as weak signals from the periphery How good is your organisation at sensing, interpreting, and acting on these signals? George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker call this capability peripheral vision—and their research shows that less than 20 percent of firms have developed it in sufficient capacity to remain competitive. In this book, they reveal a systematic process for developing peripheral vision and offer practical tools and strategies for building "vigilant organisations" that are constantly attuned to changes in the environment. Through detailed case studies ranging from LED lighting to low-carb foods to children's dolls, the authors show how vigilant organisations win scoping widely and asking the right questions; scanning actively in the right places; interpreting what signals mean; probing carefully for more information; and acting wisely on signals before competitors do. This book will help your organisation see farther to seize the opportunities and avoid the risks that come from the periphery.

"The number one business challenge is winning the long game by being more strategic: developing the skills to look outside the four walls of the organization and see the world from the future back. Steven Krupp and Paul J.H. Schoemaker bridge the gap between what many see as the separate domains of strategy and leadership to show how to develop the discipline of strategic leadership in a world of growing uncertainty"--Amazon.com.

If you have ever flown in an airplane, used electricity from a nuclear power plant, or taken an antibiotic, you have benefited from a brilliant mistake. Schoemaker provides a practical roadmap for using mistakes to accelerate learning for your organization and yourself.