Rita McGrath

New York

Blogger, Rita Gunther McGrath Blog at Freelance

Strategy & innovation. @Columbia_Biz. @Thinkers50 top 10 & #1 in strategy. Bestselling author of #TheEndofCompetitiveAdvantage & #SeeingAroundCorners.

Articles

Face the M&A truth: Mergers are glitter but grit is gold

3 days ago | livemint.com | Rita McGrath |M. Muneer

Opinion Summary Despite business buzzwords like ‘synergy,’ most mergers and acquisition (M&A) deals fail, scuttled by various factors. But M&As aren’t invariably doomed. Here’s how the playbook needs to be written. This is a Mint Premium article gifted to you. Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.
Why you would have a strategic edge if you’d attended “Leading Strategic Growth and Change” in the 90’s

5 days ago | rgmcgrath.medium.com | Rita McGrath

t’s fun to reflect on how my course “Leading Strategic Growth and Change” has evolved over the years. I first took over as the Faculty Director for the course in 1998. Everyone was abuzz about this new thing we called “the Internet.” Venture capitalists had uncapped free-flowing pens, MBA students were talking about becoming entrepreneurs and it seemed that we were on the brink of a whole new age. It turned out that we were, just not in the way we expected.
The Digital Deception Economy: How Bot Farms Distort Social Signals

2 months ago | rgmcgrath.medium.com | Rita McGrath

In a digital environment, sentiment has become currency. How customers, investors, and the public feel about your content directly affects performance metrics, from revenues to reputation to stock price. But what happens when that sentiment is manufactured at scale? In 1993, the New Yorker published a cartoon by Peter Steiner that went viral. It depicted a conversation between two dogs, one with a paw sitting on a computer keyboard. The caption?
Thought Sparks

Mar 25, 2025 | thoughtsparks.substack.com | Rita McGrath

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Interns! We have interns! Welcome to the tribe

Mar 11, 2025 | rgmcgrath.medium.com | Rita McGrath

Rita McGrath·Follow7 min read·--As Garry Ridge, the former CEO of WD-40 says, in his wonderful book Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It, citing Sebastian Junger, “The earliest and most basic definition of community — of tribe — would be the group of people that you both help feed and help defend.” And as he further says, how do you learn the skills needed to feed yourself and others and defend yourself and others? Someone patiently teaches you.
The Benefits of Bureaucracy: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Red Tape

Feb 25, 2025 | ritamcgrath.com | . Speaker. Consultant |Isaac Bush |Rita McGrath

Throughout much of human history, power was exercised through a system of patrimonialism, as the great sociologist Max Weber coined the term. Under patrimonialism, a leader exerts power without respect to formal rules and regulations, personal allegiances and kinship ties determine who has access to critical resources and the entire system is managed with one overarching goal – to benefit the ruler.Bureaucracy was originally introduced as the antidote.
Is AI coming for your job? Depends on who you ask

Feb 4, 2025 | rgmcgrath.medium.com | Rita McGrath

Rita McGrath·Follow6 min read·--Astonishingly, the age of AI introduced by the November, 2022 release of ChatGPT has been around long enough that we’re starting to build up what you can think of as conventional wisdom! Most CEO’s calmly assert that its effect on jobs will be to automate dull work and let the amazing, creative humans in their operations do what they do best. That’s comforting, but is it correct?
2025: Are you able to turn navigating uncertainty into an asset?

Jan 18, 2025 | thoughts.siliconguild.com | Rita McGrath

Written by Rita McGrathThe coming year promises to be one in which long-held assumptions about how business works are going to be thoroughly upended. While this might seem threatening, historically, periods of uncertainty create unprecedented opportunities for those willing to embrace new realities. While there are any number of trends that we could be watching, there are five non-obvious ones that I think will make their way into people’s day-to-day consciousness in this coming year.
Join me at the Conference Forbes declared one of the top 5 to attend this year- April 29-30 in Dublin

Jan 14, 2025 | thoughtsparks.substack.com | Rita McGrath

We’ve all been to conferences that are either a bunch of talking heads or even worse, panel after panel after panel without a lot of new insights or actionable ideas. Our team at The Reinvention Summit is designing a series of events in a fantastic venue in Dublin, Ireland that aims to change all that. The technology we have today is the worst it will ever be. The organizations we are running today are moving as slowly as they ever will.
2025: Are you able to turn navigating uncertainty into an asset?

Jan 7, 2025 | rgmcgrath.medium.com | Rita McGrath

Rita McGrath·Follow7 min read·Jan 7, 2025--The coming year promises to be one in which long-held assumptions about how business works are going to be thoroughly upended. While this might seem threatening, historically, periods of uncertainty create unprecedented opportunities for those willing to embrace new realities.