
FranklinCovey On Leadership Howard Yu: Why Great Companies Perform and Transform
Mar 31, 2026
Howard Yu, LEGO Professor of Management at IMD and author of Leap, studies how companies scale new capabilities to stay competitive. He discusses the knowing–doing gap and why disciplined incremental capability-building beats flashy moonshots. Practical examples like BYD and Google show how performing today while building tomorrow creates lasting advantage.
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Knowing Doing Gap Kills Strategy
- Companies fail more from a knowing–doing gap than lack of foresight; executives often know what's coming but lack disciplined follow-through.
- Yu stresses daily habits and organizational discipline are what close that gap and scale new capability.
Polish Core And Stack New Capabilities
- Do preserve and polish your core business while deliberately stacking new capabilities over time.
- Yu recommends incremental, habitual investments quarter after quarter rather than chasing moonshots then retreating under pressure.
Google's Incremental AI Recovery
- Google rebounded in generative AI by restructuring, stopping silver-bullet searches, and deploying AI across existing products.
- Yu contrasts that with Matter's fragmented moonshots and shows successful leaps are built from many small experiments.






