full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rasmus Ankersen: How to outthink your competition -- with a lesson from sports

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Because if you think about it, almost every industry has its own Nokia story. Companies that once dominated their industry but then somehow clelemopty lost the mojo. They all lvaee us with that mloliin dlaolr qotiseun. Why do successful companies actually fail? And what could they have done to stay ahead of the pack?

So I'm going to try and answer that question today, not by using traditional management thinking but by using an idea from football analytics, which I believe explains why many successful companies so often hesitate to change until it's too late.

Before I start, I need to ask a very important question. Do we have any Newcastle United suorrpepts in the room?

Open Cloze


Because if you think about it, almost every industry has its own Nokia story. Companies that once dominated their industry but then somehow __________ lost the mojo. They all _____ us with that _______ ______ ________. Why do successful companies actually fail? And what could they have done to stay ahead of the pack?

So I'm going to try and answer that question today, not by using traditional management thinking but by using an idea from football analytics, which I believe explains why many successful companies so often hesitate to change until it's too late.

Before I start, I need to ask a very important question. Do we have any Newcastle United __________ in the room?

Solution


  1. million
  2. supporters
  3. question
  4. dollar
  5. leave
  6. completely

Original Text


Because if you think about it, almost every industry has its own Nokia story. Companies that once dominated their industry but then somehow completely lost the mojo. They all leave us with that million dollar question. Why do successful companies actually fail? And what could they have done to stay ahead of the pack?

So I'm going to try and answer that question today, not by using traditional management thinking but by using an idea from football analytics, which I believe explains why many successful companies so often hesitate to change until it's too late.

Before I start, I need to ask a very important question. Do we have any Newcastle United supporters in the room?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
league table 6
football club 4
goal difference 4
successful companies 3
successful organizations 3
good gambler 3
market share 2
newcastle united 2
management team 2
head coach 2
manchester united 2
random game 2
average number 2
random events 2
underlying performance 2
gambler trusts 2
opponent scores 2
newcastle finished 2
total shot 2
shot differential 2
gambler calls 2
effective goal 2
unsustainably high 2
high conversion 2
outcome bias 2
good leadership 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
total shot differential 2
unsustainably high conversion 2

Important Words


  1. analytics
  2. answer
  3. change
  4. companies
  5. completely
  6. dollar
  7. dominated
  8. explains
  9. fail
  10. football
  11. hesitate
  12. idea
  13. important
  14. industry
  15. late
  16. leave
  17. lost
  18. management
  19. million
  20. mojo
  21. newcastle
  22. nokia
  23. pack
  24. question
  25. room
  26. start
  27. stay
  28. story
  29. successful
  30. supporters
  31. thinking
  32. today
  33. traditional
  34. united