The SpruanceQuarterly online newsletter provides unique insights into leadership, strategy, pricing and innovation topics. Published four times annually, it is our cornerstone publication that is read by thousands of readers who look to this important Spruance Group publication for cutting edge ideas, contrarian opinion, and provocative commentary.

Price wars are an unwinnable gamble

In 1992, American Airlines initiated one of the most destructive price wars of all time. Price cuts led to more retaliatory price cuts by industry players. In a short three-month span, US airline companies collectively lost over $1.5 Billion. Think price wars are winnable? Think again. Read more...

The simplicity of innovation

Peter Drucker believed that for innovation to be effective it had to simple; it was usually not the result of brilliant ideas. For all the hoopla about “brilliant strokes of genius” being the primary driver of innovation, the reality is just the opposite. Most successful innovative ventures are actually quite simple. Read more...

The importance of effective feedback

Effective feedback is the cornerstone for improvement. And never was the value of feedback so critical for needed improvement than in the aftermath of the battle of Tarawa—a bloody battle fought almost seven decades earlier between American and Japanese forces that put the entire Central Pacific war strategy at risk. Read more...

Dynamic pricing hits the big leagues

Dynamic pricing--an algorithm-based pricing model where the face value of every ticket rises or falls based on real-time changes in demand—is coming to Major League Baseball. If you hate the way airlines price (and who doesn’t?), you’re not going to be happy with this new development. Read more...

Critical thinking: the secret weapon for today's veterans

Today’s veterans possess more than just a military background. What comes with this rich experience is a set of critical thinking skills--problem solving and decision making--that are in high demand among employers and college admissions officers alike. The challenge for veterans returning to civilian life is to focus on these skills and not the experience itself. Read more...

Strategy lessons from the Battle of Midway

Of all the lessons learned from this naval battle, the most significant blunder by the Japanese—failing to align their two major battle objectives--remains important in the business world today. As strategy is formulated, it is imperative to identify the possible contradictions between individual objectives. For the Japanese at Midway, the results were disastrous. Read more...

The perils of wishful thinking

It has been said that in warfare, the greatest enemy of victory is wishful thinking. And while today’s start-up business environment is quite different from actual warfare, wishful thinking can be equally destructive for today’s entrepreneur. Read more...

Leadership and the importance of accountability 

The findings from separate accidents from two high-profile organizations were released within days of each other. While both incidents resulted in the death of a single individual and the findings similarly cited “lack of oversight and procedures” as the primary cause, the resulting accountability of those responsible could not have been more different. Read more...

Incremental innovation has its limits 

Incremental innovation is more about evolutionary improvement than instituting revolutionary change. It delivers short-term benefits for existing products, but at the expense of developing new markets or products. Understanding the limitations will help your innovation efforts. Read more...

Leadership lessons from the Marine Corps

While the Marines are most known for intense instruction, their training success is actually due not so much to its rigor; but rather, to the quality of the personnel who are chosen as trainers. Unlike other organizations, the Marines select their top performers to serve as trainers and even pull them off the front lines to do so. Read more...

Fosbury's innovative flop 

In 1968, a young American high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the Olympic gold medal with a new and unorthodox style. Known as the Fosbury Flop, it remains the stardard technique for world-class jumpers today and is considered track & field’s most successful innovation. Read more...

Get out of the office; talk to your customers 

You may have a reasonable hypothesis on who your customers are and what they want, but until you validate this by getting out of the office and meeting with them face-to-face, all you really have is an educated guess. Remember, executives talking to other executives about customer needs is ridiculous. Read more...

Basketball's disruptive innovation

Of all the changes that have occurred in basketball since its inception, which is considered the game’s most important? The dunk? The shot clock? The Laker Girls? All are significant, but this particular breakthrough is considered to be one of basketball’s true disruptive innovations. Read more...

Unexpected customers from unexpected matkets 

According to serial entrepreneur and author Steven Gary Blank, the greatest risk--and hence the greatest cause of failure--is not in the development of a new product but in the development of customers and markets. Finding these customers means sometimes looking in the most unexpected places. Read more...

Leadership lessons from Raymond Spruance 

Admiral Raymond Spruance and his U.S. Central Pacific Fleet never lost a battle to the enemy during World War II. Want to get your leadership team to achieve similar results during your company’s battles? Here are three lessons learned from Spruance that will give you a decisive edge over your competition. Read more...

Anchors, price and value

What's the best way to sell a $600 pair of shoes? Better marketing? Better packaging? Maybe...but perhaps the best way to sell them is to place them next to pair priced at $1,200. Anchor pricing has been used by luxury retailers for years, but can you apply similar techniques in the sale of high tech products and professional services? Read more...

Improvement is not innovation 

It’s easy to confuse improvement for innovation. The two terms have become interchangeable in today’s marketplace. But only innovation creates such superior outcomes that your competitors will be either unable or unwilling to come close in matching. Read more...

Full court press: A John Wooden lesson for today's CEO 

Before winning his first NCAA basketball championship in 1964, John Wooden enjoyed limited success at UCLA in sixteen previous seasons. So what was the tipping point for this sudden reversal of fortune? Better players? Better coaching? No, it turns that Wooden's success was the result of one of the great mid-course management corrections of all time. Read more...

Value-based pricing: Three keys to success

Value-based pricing is the ultimate objective for most organizations. It’s what enables successful firms to charge above-average industry margins for products; ultimately dricing superior bottom-line results. But as you move down the road of success for value-based pricing, beware of these three challenges that must be overcome to reach that final destination. Read more...

Reflections on leadership 

A brief interaction many years ago with former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin taught me more about risk than I could have ever learned in any formal classroom setting. He was the co-chairman of Goldman Sachs while I was just a young associate, but the lessons learned from that conversation remain with me even today. Read more...

Does value follow price? 

We're all familiar with the term “you get what you pay for”—but does it really factor into buyers’ perceptions of value today? When the Humane Society Silicon Valley faced a pet adoption and return challenge, they used an unconventional approach to solve the problem; they raised prices. Read more...