In a business world obsessed with innovation, few figures have done more to define the profitable pathways led by competitive frugality than Bruce Piasecki. For over four decades, Piasecki—founder of AHC Group and author of two dozen commercially successful books like Doing More with Less.—has helped major corporations like Toyota, Merck, Enbridge and Walgreens Boots Alliance navigate the challenges of global competition, climate transition, and organizational change.
How has his firm and this book writer done that? By championing the team over the individual.
While the tech industry worships the visionary founder and business schools still glorify lone genius CEOs, Piasecki quietly built a career proving that high-performing teams, not individuals, hold the keys to lasting and compounding performance. And he has the record to prove it. He believes every change management team needs three kinds of competence: a respect for technical complexities, a clarity of the surrounding government rules and legal trends, plus managerial savvy. He writes about these traits in his books Doing More with Less and in his new narrative on business and society at wealth and climate competitiveness.
A Different Kind of Competition
Piasecki’s view of competition is nuanced—and striking. “In a world of constantly changing tides, yesterday’s ‘safe’ is likely to be today’s not enough,” he writes in one of his most circulated essays, The End of Fierce Individualism. But he doesn’t advocate cutthroat behavior or heroic solo efforts. Instead, Piasecki believes that modern competition must be collaborative, ethical, and centered on team-based agility. He says in his New York Times bestseller, Doing More with Less, that we all must become more like Ben Franklin all over again: diplomatic, civic, innovative and competitive.
“Effective teams take risks,” he explains. “The greatest innovations happen beyond existing laws and rules. But it’s also critical to eliminate the risk of negative team behavior—the kind that led to the downfall of people like Bernie Madoff and Lance Armstrong.”
In this framework, competition is a driver for disciplined experimentation, not reckless escalation. And unlike traditional models of top-down leadership, Piasecki’s world is bottom-up, collaborative, and fast-moving. He is known to call this new century “swift and severe”, shaping a new frontier he calls the S Frontier in his books.
Doing More with Teams
That philosophy is the foundation of AHC Group’s flagship methodology: Doing More with Teams. Originally the title of Piasecki’s 2013 book, it’s now a full-fledged consulting approach deployed across dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Rather than coaching individuals to outperform, AHC Group helps organizations build durable, adaptive teams that are accountable, ethical, and empowered to lead.
“Teams that succeed today,” says Piasecki, “are those that can adapt quickly, challenge each other constructively, and learn on the go.”
His consulting work focuses on team behavior in volatile contexts—whether that’s transitioning to net-zero emissions, navigating a CEO succession, or managing large-scale ESG disclosures. AHC Group acts as both a coach and a catalyst, often forming “sustainability advisory councils” within firms to drive meaningful, team-led transformation.
A Workshop at the Heart of Change
One of the most powerful examples of Piasecki’s method in action was the June 2025 workshop at S&P Global headquarters in New York City. Organized by AHC Group and his lead legal partner Chris Carr, this two-day leadership summit brought together 40 senior leaders from finance, energy, and tech sectors to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in corporate governance and climate competitiveness.
The format was deliberate: real-world simulations, live case studies, and dynamic peer collaboration—not lectures or slide decks. Executives rotated between mixed-sector teams to assess emerging climate policy, stakeholder expectations, and the organizational capacity for change. You can see the key speakers Piasecki facilitated to the group at www.achievingresults25.com.
According to feedback gathered after the session, the workshop helped catalyze new governance frameworks at S&P, accelerate several ESG initiatives, and—perhaps most importantly—create stronger cross-functional collaboration across leadership levels. Go to the above webpage to get involved in their next workshops, this one next in Washington DC next January 2026.
Change Management with Purpose
Piasecki’s approach to change management is rooted in people, not process. Drawing from both academic models (like Peter Senge’s “learning organization”) and real-time corporate crises, he emphasizes the importance of psychological safety, ethical feedback loops, and strategic dissent. At this point, several CEOS can be found speaking in video about Piasecki’s approach and values at www.brucepiasecki.com. There find a teaser to a forthcoming PBS show as well.
Rather than suppress conflict, Piasecki encourages teams to enter the “storming” phase of development quickly—where debate, disagreement, and honest friction sharpen clarity and drive innovation. It’s this comfort with discomfort that often marks the turning point in his consulting engagements.
As seen in his work with energy companies and manufacturers, Piasecki often brings cross-functional teams together in structured dialogues. In these sessions, finance talks to operations, legal hears from ESG, and all sides confront their assumptions. The result: faster decisions, fewer blind spots, and a culture where trust and accountability thrive. There is even a cartoon made now on the meaning of Piasecki’s approach at www.thedoingmorewithlessguy.com
Praise from Industry Leaders
Piasecki’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed. Bill Novelli, former CEO of AARP, described his influence in video remarks hosted on www.brucepiasecki.com
“Bruce is a kind of guy who can make things better. That’s what he thinks about. That’s what he writes about, It goes well beyond Corporate America, it goes into everyday life.”
Chris Coulter, CEO of GlobeScan and a longtime partner in stakeholder engagement initiatives, echoed that sentiment:
“We’re in a moment in time where we need to clarify what the good life looks like with a sustainability burlap, sacks and sacrifice, but about delightful adaptive life in the way we want that is rich and striving”
These testimonials highlight a rare combination in Piasecki’s work: intellectual clarity, actionable frameworks, and lasting organizational culture change. Once again, he exemplifies being like Ben Franklin all over again in this new swift and severe century.
Legacy in Motion
With over 30 years at the helm of AHC Group, Piasecki is now thinking as much about legacy as he is about leadership. He’s still actively involved in major consulting initiatives, but he’s also mentoring the next generation of organizational thinkers and publishing prolifically—including recent books like Wealth and Climate Competitiveness.
His workshops continue to draw high-level participation, and his influence on sustainability, governance, and strategy remains undeniable. This coming September 17, 2025, Piasecki is giving a free global webinar in the Security and Sustainability Forum led by Edward Saltzberg of Washington DC. Enroll for free at https://ssfworld.org/webinar-tracks/
Yet at the core, Bruce Piasecki’s humane set of messages haven’t changed all that much in their fundamentals: namely, organizations succeed not by avoiding competition, but by mastering it together. And in a world of increasing complexity, his belief in the team as the unit of transformation might be exactly what business needs most.
