We live in challenging times. Geopolitical turmoil, local and national social unrest, cycles of deadly natural disasters, cyber hacks, rising distrust of media and tech companies—many recent disruptive events have taken us by surprise.

Nearly two decades ago, military planners coined an acronym to capture the nature of an increasingly unpredictable and dyn...

Alan Barnard is 6’6” and 220 pounds, and his size certainly helped him appear confident as he stood before a hostile audience of mine managers facing yet another round of layoffs at their mine.

Barnard, a protégé of Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, creator of the Theory of Constraints, was there to help fix a giant problem. The mine had a target of a million tons a m...