Newsweek's cover story, "America, Inc."

We have spent two decades at The Sawyer-Miller Group and Core Strategy Group borrowing the lessons of politics for businesses....and the lessons of businesses for politics....

And both feed off each other in terms of best practice lessons: Politics teaches the power of what we call insurgent or Underdog strategy, control of the dialogue and discipline. And business teaches the power of bottom line focus and discipline. For example, one evolution of President Obama's cabinet, I suspect, will be the addition of further business and bottom line expertise: Two cabinet officials, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Interior, have significant business leadership experience. We'll need more.

Government must not only govern--it must pay it's bills....just like those of us who run companies.

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Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

Silvers' video is a fantastic example of the power of momentum--in our campaign work, we call it the bandwagon effect. It starts small, in "Do the Doable" steps, and then grows; and grows. Ultimately, leading people means building momentum as you transfer ownership your leadership to them. It's not about the leader; it's about the followers.

David Morey
Author, The Underdog Advantage

Winning in 2010

This white paper details a framework for winning in 2010—a year in which all businesses and leaders are facing unique challenges. It summarizes our award-winning book and what we call “The Underdog Advantage”—learning and borrowing the great underdog stories and lessons from business, politics and warfare.

Today is the toughest environment in business history: 95% of start-up businesses fail by their 10th year—as do 80% of corporate products. And consumer research shows unprecedented distrust, cynicism and even anger—with distrust of institutions at an all time high. For all companies in all industries, these are remarkably topsy-turvy times. It’s the toughest time in history for the incumbent.

As a result, all companies today are in transformation—whether they know it or not, and whether they are in control of the transformation or not. And to adapt and win in these very challenging times, a company must be ready to move quickly to opportunity and away from failed strategies. So the kind of transformation you are leading within your company must be from top to bottom … and very carefully and strategically controlled. This is fundamentally what it takes to succeed today.

Download the complete white paper