America’s Continuing Failure to Innovate

The very first blog post of my career was at Denise Caruso’s Hybrid Vigor that I called The Intangible Imperitive.  The post was inspired by an article about how Brazil’s farmers were out-innovating those in the U.S. I felt frustrated that we were not stepping up to global competition. Since then, I have blogged about similar concerns for the automotive industry. I had the same feeling when I read a story yesterday in the New York Times entitled China Far Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants:

By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, and by building many identical power plants at the same time, China has cut costs dramatically through economies of scale. It now can cost a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States. Read more

Mintzberg on America’s Management Failures

Henry Mintzberg is the authority that I most respect on the subject of strategy. He has written both the best textbook and the most thoughtful critiques of current practices of strategy and strategic planning I know. The easiest way to get a feel for his perspective is Strategy Bites Back.

So I pay attention when he speaks. And he had lots to say in his piece in the Globe and Mail recently here entitled, “America’s Monumental Failure of Management” which I found thanks to a post by Richard Florida. Read more