Christian Sarkar

Poor Leonardo. After losing out to Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni during his lifetime, he still doesn't get the credit or recognition his work deserves. Finally, someone trusted their intuition, and bought a sketch which looked to him like a Leonardo, and, lo - it was! His $19000 investment is now worth $150 million: Now that's what I call reverse innovation! If you'll excuse me, I'm off to the basement to see if I have any Da Vinci's lying around in my art collection... ... (more)

Amartya Sen: The Idea of Justice

His latest book, The Idea of Justice, is a serious re-examination of the foundations of justice from a global perspective. He speaks of the two definitions of justice in Sanskrit - niti (institutional justice) and nyaya (realized justice) - and how we are too often misled by the utopian vision of ideal justice, only to allow societal injustice all around us in our everyday lives. For Sen, justice must alleviate suffering. Here's his lecture to the folks at The Carnegie Council (video here): AMARTYA SEN: It is always an absolute delight for me to be back here at the Carnegie Coun... (more)

Business Service Management: Aligning Business & IT

When Rick Berzle and Bill Keyworth asked me to join them to build a site on the topic of Business Service Management, I immediately said yes. The result is BSMReview.com, a site which seeks to analyze the best and next practices in business service management from a third-party point of view. The experts that Bill has brought to the site are literally a who's who of the best and most trusted people in the field: Peter Armstrong, Tom Bishop, Malcolm Fry, Israel Gat, Peter McGarahan, Richard Ptak, and Ken Turbitt. And that's just for the launch. Bill is recruiting more experts even ... (more)

It's Time to Quit the US Chamber of Commerce

Simply put, it's a values issue. The irrational position of the US Chamber of Commerce should cause member companies to rethink their position within the organization. PG&E, PNM Energy, Apple, and Exelon Energy have already quit the Chamber, rather than continuing to support an organization which is so out of touch with reality. Ultimately, companies must ask themselves - is it worth my company's reputation and brand to stand on the wrong side of science and history? The following companies are still part of the US Chamber of Commerce: AT&T State Farm Insurance Companies United Par... (more)

Misplaced Priorities: Six Strategies for CEO Failure?

American style management has been under some considerable stress these last few years. Now the nerds at Bain have some advice for the CEO. Apparently there are six dilemmas CEOs must face and - surprise! Bain has uncovered six strategies to help the CEO manage these dilemmas. Check out the cool diagram below: I personally think the CEOs would be better off following VG's 3 box strategy and executing on it.  This other stuff is fine, but it doesn't seem to be the stuff of great leadership. Nowhere do we see anything about creating great products or obsessing over your customer... (more)