Do not bin the old ideas!
I offer the following as really useful models, that we probably all got taught sometime in our development as leaders and managers. They are still incredibly useful but probably underused.
My List would include: Lewin’s Force Field Analysis, the Ishakawa ‘Fishbone’ diagram, Stephen Covey’s Circles of Concern and Circles of Influence, and Buzan’s Mindmappng.
Of course there are some other great hairy models like the 7 S framework and Porter’s 5 Forces but these tend to be frameworks for strategic analysis not the sort of thing you might quickly draw on a flip chart or a note pad to help a discussion move forward or a problem be better understood.
I would be interested to hear any other suggestions for forgotten gems.
This is a post by Steve Carter November 2009
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