Jim McLaughlin's Blog

I just finished a two-year project looking at Michael Porter’s most important insights for managers. Connecting the dots between his classic frameworks (the five forces, for example) and his latest thinking (the five tests of strategy) gave me a new understanding of the most common mistakes that can derail a company’s strategy. In a previous… Read more

My colleague Kevin Sieff wrote about gifted and talented programs in this Washington Post story, which focuses on the racial enrollment gap. Even in school systems with a majority of African-American and Hispanic students, white and Asian students tend to dominate in G&T programs. The story raises a number of questions, including how students are… Read more

At the State EdTech Directors Association (SETDA) annual conference I talked about a dozen of the factors accelerating the shift to digital learning: via 10 reasons the shift may happen faster than you think | Getting Smart. Read more

To help you break the busy-ness cycle and work happier, we’ve rounded up a handful of counter-intuitive ways to tweak your habits and your mindset. They range from obvious-but-oft-ignored tips to the slightly more eccentric. via 8 Counter-Intuitive Ways to Improve Your Well-Being & Creativity :: Tips :: The 99 Percent. Read more

Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the “40-30-30 Rule.” During training, early on, I tried to go fast, and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach… Read more

No one likes the feeling that other people are waiting – impatiently – for you to get back to them. At the beginning of the day, faced with an overflowing inbox, a list of messages on your voicemail, and the to-do list from your last meeting, it’s tempting to want to “clear the decks” before… Read more