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The ‘Small’ Challenge for Big Companies

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Innovation: The 'Small' Challenge for Big Companies This HBR article highlights a compelling asymmetry in team dynamics: large teams excel at development and deployment, while small teams are better suited for disruption. Large teams execute. Small teams disrupt. The former march in formation; the latter think in rebellion.

Anecdotally, that rings true. Smaller teams, leaner in structure and tighter in cohesion, thrive at birthing radical ideas and reframing paradigms. They move quickly because they aren’t bogged down by bureaucracy and status meetings. They share context without memos, pivot without permission, and fail without fanfare. Their edge is subtraction: less red tape, fewer egos, and, mercifully, no corporate pep talks. That’s why Amazon swears by the “two-pizza team” rule—agility thrives in small bites.

Large teams thrive at refinement. They have the muscle to scale, test, and adapt ideas for customers. Their access to resources, infrastructure, and markets gives them an advantage in execution.

Disruption favors the quiet hum of concentrated minds, not the roar of crowded rooms. That’s why forward-thinking companies seed Skunkworks, nimble innovation cells within large organizations, designed to marry the agility of small teams with the power of big ones. A lightweight alternative is the ad hoc hackathon: short, focused bursts of innovation where small teams or cross-company partnerships can rapidly prototype with minimal overhead.

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  1. Penang’s Clan Jetties: Collective Identity as Economic Infrastructure
  2. Why You May Be Overlooking Your Best Talent
  3. Labeling Damage
  4. Racism and Identity: The Lie of Labeling
  5. The Mere Exposure Effect: Why We Fall for the Most Persistent

When Global Ideas Hit a Wall: BlaBlaCar in America

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When Global Ideas Hit a Wall: BlaBlaCar in America BlaBlaCar’s deliberate decision not to expand into the United States underscores how cultural fault lines can impede the global flow of innovation. The French platform has flourished in Europe by turning empty car seats into affordable intercity transport. Its success was driven by thrift, compact geography, and a communal ethos—ideal conditions for ridesharing.

The American market, however, presented a less hospitable landscape. Low fuel prices weakened cost-based incentives. Widespread car ownership reduced demand, and vast distances with sparse populations made rider-driver matching difficult. Without established transit hubs, the logistics became cumbersome.

A deeper challenge lay in cultural norms. American car culture prizes autonomy, spontaneity, and personal space—values that conflict with BlaBlaCar’s fixed routes and shared rides. Legal complexities and strong competition from entrenched local-ride players like Uber and Lyft made the prospect of entry unappealing.

Rather than launching and failing, BlaBlaCar opted out—recognizing that the U.S. market lacked the structural and cultural conditions essential to its model’s success.

Idea for Impact: Success hinges on cultural fit. Some ideas do not translate well across borders. Cultures are intricate systems of values and habits that can pose structural barriers to foreign solutions.

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  1. How FedEx and Fred Smith Made Information the Package
  2. Consumer Power Is Shifting and Consumer Packaged Goods Companies Are Struggling
  3. Your Product May Be Excellent, But Is There A Market For It?
  4. FedEx’s ZapMail: A Bold Bet on the Future That Changed Too Fast
  5. What Virgin’s Richard Branson Teaches: The Entrepreneur as Savior, Stuntman, Spectacle

Penang’s Clan Jetties: Collective Identity as Economic Infrastructure

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Penang's Clan Jetties: Collective Identity as Economic Infrastructure

Earlier this year in Penang, Malaysia, I took a heritage tour of the historic Clan Jetties—floating neighborhoods founded by Chinese clans and built on communial support systems and patrilineal lineage. These aren’t just relics of the past, with weathered wooden walkways and shrines in doorways. They are vibrant, multi-generational communities—economic and familial ecosystems still alive with purpose.

More than cultural curiosities in a UNESCO World Heritage site, the jetties serve as a functional blueprint. Each clan shares a common surname, tracing its ancestry to a specific immigrant group from Fujian or other southern Chinese provinces. This reinforces generational bonds and collective identity.

What makes the Clan Jetties remarkable is how moral and cultural foundations shape their economy. Business isn’t just transactional—it’s relational, grounded in duty and shared identity. Families pool labor and resources across generations, while the clan acts as a safety net. Their strength lies in a moral ecosystem built on loyalty and authority—values central to collectivist cultures. Meaning comes not just from personal success, but from contributing to a shared legacy. Clans offer support—both financial and domestic—forming an informal but dependable social safety net.

Contrast that with the American entrepreneurial model, where founders often play the lone hero. Individualism—born of Enlightenment ideals—has driven innovation and freedom, but also fragmentation, isolation, and a relentless winner-takes-all mindset. When support systems falter, individuals are left vulnerable.

Confucian Filial Piety's Role in Chinese Clan Social Support What struck me most in Penang is how Confucian values—often dismissed as rigid—are anything but. They animate daily life: in the blending of commerce and kinship, reverence for elders, and collective memory embedded in each home. In a world fractured by consumerism and digital detachment, it’s moving to witness a system that binds people not only by contract, but by shared obligation and fate.

Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew captured this tension well. He viewed Confucian values not as limitations, but as strategic assets—cultural capital that supported economic growth and social cohesion. A pragmatist, he believed progress wasn’t about shedding the past wholesale, but preserving what worked. And across many Southeast Asian Chinese communities, values like filial piety and loyalty have proven their worth in both tradition and results.

I left with a deep appreciation for the durability and moral architecture of their support systems. These structures don’t just sustain businesses or offer security—they preserve memory, duty, and an enduring sense of purpose. There’s something here worth learning—not to abandon individualism, but to balance it with renewed commitment to collective responsibility and cultural continuity.

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  1. The ‘Small’ Challenge for Big Companies
  2. The Double-Edged Sword of a Strong Organizational Culture
  3. Why You May Be Overlooking Your Best Talent
  4. There’s Real Danger in Religious Illiteracy
  5. When Global Ideas Hit a Wall: BlaBlaCar in America

The Business of Popular Causes

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Starbucks:Championing Progressive Causes, While Undermining Unionization Efforts Starbucks has long been celebrated for its progressive image and support of social justice causes. But when it comes to unionization and better benefits, the company’s actions tell a different story. Internal policies—like cracking down on union activities—raise doubts about how committed it truly is to the values it champions.

Starbucks is a prime example of a wider trend: companies quickly embrace progressive causes, but only when they don’t hurt the bottom line. This is Bandwagon Branding—when businesses latch onto the latest popular cause, whether it’s social justice, climate change, or equality, to align with dominant public values. They roll out hashtags, social media campaigns, and limited-edition products to show support. But once the spotlight fades, they quietly move on to the next issue. Remember when founder-CEO Howard Schultz launched the “Race Together” initiative, letting baristas at 12,000 locations write it on cups to spark conversations about race?

This cycle—big gestures, minimal change, quick pivots—reveals a harsh truth: corporations are profit-driven. Their true loyalty is to shareholders, not social causes. Corporate virtue-signaling often rings hollow.

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  2. When Global Ideas Hit a Wall: BlaBlaCar in America
  3. Consumer Power Is Shifting and Consumer Packaged Goods Companies Are Struggling
  4. Your Product May Be Excellent, But Is There A Market For It?
  5. The Mere Exposure Effect: Why We Fall for the Most Persistent

New Rules of Language for the Digitally Baffled: Summary of Gretchen McCulloch’s ‘Because Internet’

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New Rules of Language for the Digitally Baffled In Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (2019,) Canadian linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the ever-evolving dynamics of language in the digital age. She explains numerous quirky details about how people type in text messages—those oddities you’ve probably noticed but never really understood.

The shift toward brevity and the informal nature of online communication have reshaped the way we interact, often giving the impression of a decline in linguistic standards—much to the frustration of prescriptivists who cling to traditional language rules.

Internet writing is a distinct genre with its own goals, and to accomplish those goals successfully requires a subtly tuned awareness of the full spectrum of the language. … Language is a thing that lives in the minds of individual humans at individual points in time, a thing that can’t be fully encompassed in a static list of uses like a game of chess.

McCulloch presents an engaging analysis of how new words, phrases, and slang continue to emerge and spread globally at an unprecedented rate, driven largely by social media. Rather than lamenting the habits of “kids these days,” she embraces the evolution of modern language, encouraging a fresh appreciation for the quirky, unpredictable, and often amusing ways we now communicate online.

'Because Internet' by Gretchen McCulloch (ISBN 0735210934) Throughout the book, McCulloch uncovers the curious nuances of texting—subtle details you’ve likely noticed but never fully understood. As an exercise in descriptivism, the book provides keen insights into the fluid nature of language in the digital age: why sparkly tildes became shorthand for sarcasm, how emojis are replacing words, and the linguistic significance of internet dialects like doge, lolspeak, and snek. You’ll also learn why your teenager replies “LOL” when nothing funny was said.

Now more than ever in history, communication extends beyond mere words; it’s about how we connect. It’s a game of linguistic dodgeball, filled with fast, cryptic slang, witty retorts that often mean the opposite of what they say, and so much brevity that half the message gets lost. You’re never quite sure if someone’s complimenting you or subtly roasting you!

Read Because Internet if you’re a writer, reader, social media user, or just someone who enjoys a good language deep dive. This sharp and witty blend of humor and analysis will have you second-guessing every text, status update, and tweet you’ve ever sent—often revealing more about yourself than you realized! It’s the perfect guide for anyone eager to stay “in the know” and navigate the ever-shifting, often bewildering language of social media culture.

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  5. Entitlement and Anger Go Together

The Double-Edged Sword of a Strong Organizational Culture

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The Double-Edged Sword of a Strong Organizational Culture Peter Drucker’s famous phrase, “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” underscores the vital importance of nurturing internal cultures within organizations. A robust organizational culture possesses a powerful influence, shaping the work environment, molding employees’ mindsets, and ultimately determining the organization’s overall success. The pursuit of cultivating workplace cultures has led to a plethora of models and methodologies, propagated by business schools and leadership consultants.

However, the enthusiasm for strong cultures as a cure-all for leadership challenges should be balanced with an understanding of the complexities they introduce.

While strong cultures offer undeniable advantages, they can unintentionally encourage groupthink, stifling diversity of thought and hindering adaptability to changing circumstances. Dissenting voices and alternative values may be marginalized or even excluded, all in the name of maintaining cultural consistency and safeguarding cultural alignment. This can create substantial pressure for individuals to conform.

Idea for Impact: Well-established cultures often resist change and deviations from established norms, sometimes regarding non-conformists as threats to the existing order. Strike a delicate balance between cultural cohesion and a deliberate focus on diversity and inclusion.

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  1. Why You May Be Overlooking Your Best Talent
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  3. Let Others Shine
  4. The ‘Small’ Challenge for Big Companies
  5. The Duplicity of Corporate Diversity Initiatives

Embracing Cultural Sensitivity: A Case Study of Akira Kurosawa’s Oscar Speech

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Consider the acceptance speech delivered by the renowned director Akira Kurosawa when he received the Honorary Award at the 62nd Academy Awards in 1989. This award recognized his lifetime achievements and his significant impact on filmmaking, both in Japan and internationally.

I am very deeply honored to receive such a wonderful prize, but I have to ask whether I really deserve it. I’m a little worried, because I don’t feel that I understand cinema yet. I really don’t feel that I have yet grasped the essence of cinema. Cinema is a marvelous thing, but to grasp its true essence is very, very difficult. But what I promise you is that from now on I will work as hard as I can at making movies and maybe by following this path I will achieve an understanding of the true essence of cinema and earn this award. George [Lucas], Steven [Spielberg]. Thank you.

In the Western world, some may perceive this language as a display of false modesty. It appears that the legendary Kurosawa, whose cinematic genius revolutionized storytelling, downplays his abilities and achievements, seemingly deflecting praise.

Let’s Be Cautious Not to Impose Norms We Call Our Own

While Kurosawa’s speech might come across as insincere or disingenuous, it’s important to consider cultural relativism. Different cultures have varying values, norms, and philosophical perspectives. What might be seen as a positive sentiment in one culture can be perceived differently in another.

Respecting Diversity: Avoiding Imposing Personal Norms As this case study illustrates, the concept of humility in Asian cultures may differ from that in Western cultures. Many Eastern cultures approach humility not merely as an understanding of personal limits, but as a way to let go of the self, understand one’s place in the larger scheme of existence, and connect with a greater reality. (In contrast, Western traditions, for they’re based in Abrahamic traditions, often conceptualize humility as submission to God.) Eastern traditions encourage adopting a particular perspective on life, focusing on understanding the small role one plays in a vast universe, appreciating others, and recognizing their inherent worth. For instance, in Buddhism, one of the elements of the eight-fold path is “right intention,” which involves freeing oneself from selfishness, partly achieved through humble thought.

Idea for Impact: Cultural sensitivity is essential to avoid unintentional offense. Interpreting sentiments and communication within the cultural and philosophical context of the individuals involved is crucial for effective cross-cultural understanding and respect.

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  2. Labeling Damage
  3. Racism and Identity: The Lie of Labeling
  4. Ethics Lessons From Akira Kurosawa’s ‘High and Low’
  5. Why Others’ Pride Annoys You

What Does ‘Culture of Respect’ Really Mean?

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What Does 'Culture of Respect' Really Mean? A culture of respect involves a pervasive attitude and a set of behaviors that uphold the dignity, worth, and boundaries of every individual.

A culture of respect is one in which everyone knows exactly where the lines of appropriate and inappropriate conduct lie.

A culture of respect is one in which everyone takes responsibility for their actions and their impact on others. They also hold themselves and others accountable for maintaining respectful behavior.

A culture of respect is one in which everyone feels confident enough to speak up when somebody—no matter their rank—crosses the threshold of acceptable behavior.

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There’s Real Danger in Religious Illiteracy

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There's Real Danger in Religious Illiteracy From Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project:

Understanding complex religious influences is a critical dimension of understanding modern human affairs. In spite of this awareness, there remains a widespread illiteracy about religion that spans the globe. There are many consequences of this illiteracy, but the most urgent is that it fuels conflict and antagonisms and hinders cooperative endeavors in all arenas of human experience.

In our multi-faith societies, it’s essential not only to understand our own faith traditions (or lack thereof) but also to grasp the traditions of others. Religion carries significant weight in many people’s lives, shaping individual and collective history, politics, and social dynamics through beliefs, practices, and traditions.

Unfortunately, widespread myths and factual inaccuracies about religious beliefs and texts often lead to misunderstandings and ignorance, fostering fear and prejudice.

Idea for Impact: Take the time to learn about different religions. It gives you a peek into people’s perspectives, values, and what drives them. Plus, it helps you recognize and deal with your own biases and stereotypes.

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Labeling Damage

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Labels not only stereotype individuals but also limit and stifle them. Even so-called positive labels like “little miss perfect” perpetuate harmful stereotypes and can be internalized. Labels create walls around people, making it difficult for them to break free from preconceived notions.

Instead of oversimplifying people’s traits and characteristics with labels, let’s celebrate individuality by avoiding labels altogether. Let’s embrace the complexity of each person and acknowledge their unique qualities.

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