In the business world, where brands constantly seek relevance and differentiation, talent remains the true edge. Yet the corporate hiring lens, understandably, tends to gravitate toward efficiency, often favoring graduates from the country’s top three schools. It’s a pragmatic filter: limited time, limited resources, and a need to minimize risk. But this efficiency bias comes at a cost, it often […]
In business and in life, we often tolerate things that no longer make sense. We experience routines, processes, and small inefficiencies that persist simply because no one has questioned them. These everyday irritations are so familiar, they go unnoticed. They become default thinking. But to customers, they are felt, and remembered. This is what I call common nonsense: things that […]
Imagine your leadership team sailing smoothly through calm waters, until an unexpected iceberg strikes. The forecasts were solid. The numbers were sound. Yet beneath the surface, something far more insidious was at play: distorted risk perception. That iceberg? Cognitive bias: sharp, hidden, and often unseen until it’s too late. Organizations rarely fail because of risks they saw coming. More often, […]
Leaders are expected to decide fast, act boldly, and drive results. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: most business leaders don’t stop to think about how they think. They operate on autopilot, relying on gut, experience, and instinct, convinced they’re exercising sound judgment. This mindset isn’t just common; it’s a leadership blind spot with serious consequences. In an age of complexity and uncertainty, […]
I spent eight years in theology school. Yap, eight years diving deep into Scripture, leadership, and human condition. And among all the stories and lessons, one stuck with me, not just as a spiritual truth, but as a blueprint for how leaders and organizations survive and thrive. It’s the story of King David and the prophet Nathan. You probably heard […]
Every year, leadership teams go on offsite session. They treat strategic planning as a routine like Holy Week: leadership retreats, planning decks, team meetings, and then, boom, “new” strategy. But take a closer look, and it’s often last year’s plan repackaged in fresher bubble wrap. They churn out the latest buzzwords “story selling”, “agility,” “ecosystem,” “digital first”, but nothing changes […]
Most companies today are stuck in what’s called a Red Ocean, a marketplace filled with intense competition, where businesses offer similar products and fight over the same customers. Coined by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, the term describes the bloodied waters of saturated markets, where everyone’s trying to take a bigger slice of an already shrinking pie. Here, the […]
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all” — Peter Drucker, “The Effective Executive” One of the hardest things for leaders is knowing when to stop. We’re taught to push forward. To persevere. To fight sunk cost by doing more, rather than asking if we should be doing it at all. But as […]
When we launched the Mansmith Young Market Masters Awards (YMMA) in 2006, our goal was simple but purposeful: to identify and celebrate young marketers and entrepreneurs under 35 who create real business results, not through shortcuts or price cuts, and celebrity endorsements, but through strategic thinking, market insight, and values-based leadership. Two decades later, this mission has grown stronger, not […]
Every brand follows a life cycle. It begins with vision, grows through market validation, and is ultimately tested by customer demand and its ability to remain relevant. But what many fail to anticipate is that decline often doesn’t start with failure, it begins when success leads to complacency. To prevent brand decline, we must look beyond surface-level growth and examine the […]