Paul Schoemaker Archives

Decision-Making Expert Paul Schoemaker on Corporate Vigilance and Scenario Planning

Why do some firms survive or even thrive during challenging times, while others fail? Paul Schoemaker, a pioneer in the field of decision science and former Mack research director, explains two of the key concepts that firms must master to anticipate problems, challenges, and competitors. Paul Schoemaker on Vigilance Paul…Read More

Navigating Digital Turbulence

When digital turbulence is the new normal, vigilant organizations prevail by following three navigation principles. …Read More

Converting Strategic Ambiguity to Competitive Advantage: How Philips Lighting Solved the Challenge of LED Technology Disruption

George Day, Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Q2 Technologies LLC, and Govi Rao Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 48 No. 2

How Vigilant Companies Gain an Edge in Turbulent Times

Our work on vigilant leadership is being extended to the domain of foundations. We have collected data from 97 major foundations operating in the U.S. …Read More

Determinants of Organizational Vigilance: Leadership, Foresight, and Adaptation in Three Sectors

Why are vigilant organizations better at developing foresight than their rivals and acting faster on the insights and alerts? Four attributes were hypothesized to explain the difference between vigilant and vulnerable organizations.…Read More

See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence

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. …Read More

Building a More Intelligent Enterprise

Businesses must develop a sustainable competitive edge in order to succeed in the long run. One way to achieve this is by leveraging technology-enabled insights with a sophisticated understanding of decision making, judgment, and reasoning to make smarter decisions in the face of uncertainty.…Read More

How to Gain a Predictive Edge in 2017

Though uncertainty is a fixture in our fast-changing world, organizations can strengthen their forecasting capability and manage for an unpredictable future.…Read More

Superforecasting: How to Upgrade Your Company’s Judgment

Imagine that you could dramatically improve your firm’s forecasting ability, but to do so you’d have to expose just how unreliable its predictions — and the people making them — really are. That’s exactly what the U.S. intelligence community did, with dramatic results.…Read More

Leadership, Talent, and Culture: How to Win the Long Game in Innovation

Our most recent conference examined the intangible factors that can make or break a company’s innovation outcomes.…Read More

Winning the Long Game

Read an excerpt of the new book, “Winning The Long Game: How Strategic Leaders Shape The Future,” co-authored by Research Director Paul Schoemaker. …Read More

Four Ways That Thinking “Outside-in” Can Grow Your Business

If you’re not thinking about your business as part of an ecosystem, you should. Mack Institute Co-director George Day and Research Director Paul Schoemaker identify four substantial benefits of adopting an outside-in mentality.…Read More

12 Ways to Assess Your Strategic Plan, From Paul Schoemaker

Paul Schoemaker’s latest article for Inc. Magazine, How to Know If a New Strategy Will Work, offers practical advice to help managers check the viability of new project plans. In the piece, the Mack Center research director shares a 12-point diagnostic exercise, designed to assess upfront if your strategy is…Read More

Paul Schoemaker & Scott Snyder on creating a tech-savvy business culture in Inc. Magazine

Paul Schoemaker explains how to integrate the new wave of digital technologies into your workplace in his latest Inc. Magazine piece, “A Better Way to Work Technology into Your Business.” Co-written with Scott Snyder, author of The New World of Wireless, the article advises on best practices in three critical…Read More

Paul Schoemaker Evaluates Poker as a Metaphor for Business in Inc. Magazine.

Developing last week’s Inc. Magazine column on the risks of metaphor, Shoemaker’s latest article is titled, “Is Poker a Good Metaphor for Business?” In this piece, he turns a critical eye to the high-stakes game’s usage as a popular analogy for product development. Drawing upon his discussions of metaphor with…Read More

Paul Schoemaker Discusses the Risks of Metaphors in Inc Magazine

In his latest article, titled “How Metaphors & Analogies Influence Your Thinking,” Schoemaker details the ways in which figures of speech can distort or hide information that may be useful to understanding complex subjects like the economy, competition, or teamwork. In addition, he provides several steps one can take to…Read More

Paul Schoemaker Gives Advice on How to Be a Great Leader

Mack Center Sr. Fellow Paul Schoemaker has written an article for Inc Magazine, reproduced below, in which he describes six ways to become a credible leader. His advice includes strong vision, involvement, being part of the solution, and high integrity. He also makes the case that credibility is an important…Read More

Paul Schoemaker Talks to the Wall Street Journal about Brilliant Mistakes

Inventors from Archimedes to Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk have made mistakes that caused their discoveries to develop in surprisingly helpful directions. Now the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School is trying to capture mistakes like this, with the idea that making mistakes on purpose is something that all of us…Read More

Paul Schoemaker Explains What Makes a Mistake “Brilliant”

There will never be a shortage of dumb mistakes. Fortune magazine once compiled a list of the “101 Dumbest Moments in Business” that included Merrill Lynch’s investment in subprime mortgages just before the market meltdown in 2008, Mattel’s recall of 20 million toys treated with lead paint in China and…Read More

Innovating in Uncertain Markets: 10 Lessons for Green Technologies

Talking about “green technology” gets people excited. It’s thrilling to think that a new wave of inventions and discoveries will revolutionize the way we live, halt the degradation of our planet and conserve resources for future generations. And it’s more than just talk: Investors are committing real dollars.…Read More