Harvard Business Review 5 years 2004 – 2009
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Four Lessons in Adaptive Leadership by Michael Useem A culture of adaptability is vital to survival in the armed services. As business executives cope with increasing adaptability, they can take a page from the military’s book. 1) Create a personal link with every employee – individually or in gatherings. A direct connection reinforces your message. 2) Act fast – don’t shoot from the hip, but don’t wait for perfection. 3) Make organizational interests your top priority- don’t let others falter as you prosper 4) Set a direction but don’t micromanage – give people the freedom to improvise
Don’t let your competitors control what ‘sustainable’ means in your industry. Unless you are engaged in the debate and in shaping the rules, you risk being assessed against sustainability standards you can’t meet. Successful companies leverage opportunities to become an influential or dominant force in the green-standards battle. That requires understanding existing standards and also your own green capabilities. The race to shape sustainability standards will transform the competitive landscape and the social and environmental practices of companies in every industry.
Harvard Business Review October 2010 I find that more and more focus in HBR is on life and soul issues, on the why and how we do things, rather than on what we are doing. The Descartes’ quote comes to mind; ‘Man is not a means to an end, he is himself the end.’ Only when people thrive, see the reason and purpose for what they are doing, and identify with the reason and the purpose will things be done well. I welcome this trend as it aligns with what I think is important and crucial for sustainable, premium performance. The head line of the leader in this issue is “A Strategy for One’s Life.’ A few notes from the October 2010 issue; Fire your marketing manager and hire a community manager. We can no longer afford to separate marketing from customer experience and interaction enabled by social media. Social media has become so important that companies must have someone on board whose sole purpose is monitoring, participating in and engaging customers on Twitter, face book, message boards – wherever people meet online. Reading the Public Mind, As technology destroys traditional survey methods, it offers hope for new accuracy by Andrew O’Connell Phone surveys are outdated, but web panels aren’t ready. It is fiendishly hard to get cooperation from the people you would really like to draft for your surveys, and the traditional methods of doing so are losing their effectiveness and defensibility. As a result the entire opinion industry needs to be remade. Can You Open-Source Your Strategy? By Barry Newstead and Laura Lanzerotti The approach can help firms align their activities with the interest of their communities. Many businesses today can benefit from opening up strategy – at least in part – and this idea has relevance whether you make wikis or widgets. Commercials Make Us Like TV More by Leif Nelson It is not the commercial itself that makes us like it more, it is the interruption. (I have found that a five minute break every hour enhances my focus and performance. It is like starting afresh avoiding reduced clarity and speed from lethargy) It Is Time to Take Full Responsibility by Rosebeth Moss Kanter In the future you will be held accountable for the supplies you use and where they came from, what their customers do with their purchases and benefits to the communities and countries touched along the way. Leaders will be assessed not only on immediate results but on longer term impact, the ultimate effects their actions have on societal well being. Once the new metrics are out of the box, there will be no turning back. Competing on Talent Analytics by T Davenport, J Harris, and J Shapiro Google says there are three reasons people stay – the mission, the quality of the people, and the chance to build the skill set of a better leader or entrepreneur. Future organizational performance is inextricably linked to the capabilities and motivations of a company’s people. Organizations that have used data to gain human-capital insights already have a hard-to-replicate competitive advantage. Others too can draw on these new techniques to improve their business results. (I am a little bit sceptical to this being a metrics numbers game, believing that values and engagement and good leadership at all levels are the key components)
A piecemeal approach to sustainability needs to be replaced by a broader structural change, identifying opportunities that span the supply chain, reinventing manufacturing processes, and even linking up with competitors to tackle challenges of scale. We must manage sustainability as a core operational issue. Sustainability is no longer a secondary issue. It has become a competitive concern and should be handled accordingly. The core managers overseeing the supply chain, not a peripheral CSR group, must own and tackle it as aggressively as they tackle cost, quality, speed, and dependability. They must engage their entire supply chain as they seek breakthroughs and try to minimize risks. Companies that take such a holistic approach will steal a march on reactive competitors. They will be sustained. Peter Senge “They may not say this but most companies act as if sustainability is about being less bad.” (I have thought the same about ethics – that companies see it as stop being bad, rather than striving to be good.) The Transparent Supply Chain by Steve New Let your customers know everything about where your products come from before they discover it first. At each stage of the chain, a new rule will apply: The only acceptable products are those with a clear, comprehensive provenance.
Discounted Cash Flow models undervalue flexibility and management impact; what looks like lean and mean may in fact end up being higher cost than nearer at home solutions. Building the Co-Creative Enterprise by Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gilbert Give all your stake holders a bigger say, and they’ll lead you to better insights, revenues, and profits. A small number of companies have invited customers to participate directly in the design of products and services. People are inherently creative and want to shape their own experiences. In co-creation, strategy formulation involves imagining a new value chain that benefits all players in the ecosystem. Ultimately, co-creation is about putting the human experience at the centre of the enterprise’s design. The time has come for a democratic approach, in which individuals are invited to influence the future of enterprises in partnership with management. How to Save Good Ideas by John P Kotter Look at the curriculum at business schools – compare the amount of time spent coming up with an idea that solves the problem with the amount of time spent thinking about how we can take this idea and communicate it, get enough people to understand it, support it, and then go on and make it happen. The ratio in most MBA programs would be 80:20. The article lists 24 idea stopper attacks that need to be thought through and overcome to bring ideas to successful implementation.
Harvard Business Review September 2010 Many thought provoking articles in this issue. One strong trend I perceive that comes through in the issue is how business and community are identifying opportunities to work together for mutual benefit. As business continues to move from manufacturing to service orientation positioning the business in the community becomes increasingly important. It seems both wise and offering significant growth and profit opportunity to consider what is socially desirable how we can be more inclusive in who participates in the markets. Two billion people are waiting in the wings to get proper homes and lives and business that can focus and tap into this huge potential demand may well reap good harvests. When thinking about entrepreneurship it is easy to think in terms of scientific innovation and manufactured. Going forward entrepreneurship will be even more social and service oriented. CEOs with Headsets by Andrew Zimbalist Analysis of college coach compensation shows how hard it is to align pay with performance. From 2007 – 2009 college football coaches’ salaries rose 46% to an average of US$ 1.36 million. If the NCAA were to place say a $ 400,000 limit on coaches’ compensation packages, it would not materially affect the quality of coaching or schools’ ability to attract talent. Some coaches earn five to ten times what University presidents earn. It is clearly in the business interest of colleges and universities to better align their coaches’ pay with the institutions’ strategic goals, performance of the teams, and revenue potential. Be a Better Manager, Live Abroad W Maddux, A Galinsky, and C Tadmor (This resonated with me having lived and worked in seven countries. I think working in several places helps bring perspective on issues and can also increase humility and confidence.) People with international experience are more likely to create new businesses and products and to be promoted. The more expats interact with locals and local institutions, the more creative and entrepreneurial they’ll become. When Emotional Reasoning Trumps IQ by R Gilkey, R Caceda, and C Kilts People associate strategy with rational thinking and other high-level functions of the prefrontal cortex but the best strategic thinkers show more activity in parts of the brain linked with emotion and intuition. Their nervous systems may even repress rational thought to free those areas up. Of course IQ based reasoning is valuable in both strategic and tactical thinking – but it’s clear that managers integrate their brain processes as they become better strategists. When companies realize that, they may approach strategy and execution more holistically. It’s Not Unprofessional to Gossip at Work by professor Labianca. If I could take one word out of our lexicon it would be unprofessional. When managers warn us not to be unprofessional, they’re really saying that when we show up for work, they expect us to leave behind the emotional and social parts of our humanity at the door. We react to things emotionally, we form bonds with people, we gossip. To pretend otherwise makes things worse. Redefining Failure by Seth Godin Failure is often defined as doing something which goes wrong. The more common failure is not doing anything with engrained unsustainable processes and behaviours. A few types of failure often overlooked are; design failure, failure of opportunity, failure of trust, failure of will, failure of priorities, failure to quit, and failure of respect! Want People to Save? Force them! by Dan Ariely In Chile, by law, 11% of every employee’s salary is automatically transferred into a retirement account allowing employees to choose their own level of preferred risk. This resonates with my letter to the editor of The New Zealand Herald in August 2010 speaking for compulsory superannuation savings:
The Judgment Deficit by Amar Bhide’ Statistical model have deprived the financial sector of the case-by-case judgment that makes capitalism thrive. That must change. Discerning the appropriate balance between top-down command and control, on the one hand, and individual initiative and judgment, on the other, will always be a challenge for our society and our organizations. But at least we are aware of the conflict and have experience to manage it. What finance needs in particular is a return to judgment. Eventually big business ran up against the limits of extreme centralization. Telling workers exactly what to do was de-motivating – Henry Ford famously paid high wages, but that did not buy him great loyalty. Unlike airplane fleets or chess pieces, people don’t passively submit to control. They learn to game programs that seek to direct their behavior. The half-life of an effective mechanistic model to control human action is quite short. Loan officers made way for mortgage brokers. At the height of the housing loan boom in 2004, some 53,000 mortgage brokerage companies employed 419,000 employees who originated 68 % of all residential loans in USA. Less than a third of all loans were originated by the actual lender. We must learn to harness and control all the models, not just submit to them.
Working together, corporations and social entrepreneurs can reshape industries and solve the world’s toughest problems. We are witnessing a seas change in the way society’s problems are solved. By forming hybrid value chains the for-profit and citizen sectors can together remake global economies and create lasting social change. Business offers scale, expertise in operations, and finance. Social entrepreneurs offer lower costs, strong social networks, and a deeper understanding of customers and communities. India’s home deficit has been estimated conservatively to 25 million homes, perhaps the largest potential building market in the world – this is a trillion dollar housing market. It is time for the finance industry to develop smart ways for clients to invest in the world and the people who want to change it. The more eyes we have on society’s problems and opportunities, the better our chances of coming up with viable solutions. Making Social Networks Work by J Thompson and I MacMillan Five guide lines can help you build profitable, socially beneficial new businesses in the face of daunting uncertainty. 1 Define the ballpark – or the scope of the venture; 2 Attend to socio-politics; 3 Emphasize discovery–driven planning; 4 Plan disengagement; 5 Try to anticipate unintended consequences. The High Intensity Entrepreneur by A Habiby and D Coyle Entrepreneurs in emerging markets start 25% more companies than their US counterparts do, and their firms have a higher survival rate. Emerging-market ventures are proficient incubators of other entrepreneurs. We may be on the verge of a global entrepreneurial heat wave. High-intensity entrepreneurs are beginning to flourish in unlikely places, generating new product-market combinations with unbounded potential. For multinationals and investors, they represent immediate channels for growth. For governments and foundations, this new breed of innovators provides the path to progress and prosperity. Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women by H Ibarra, N Carter and C Silva. High potential females need more than just well meaning mentors. More women get mentored 83 % as opposed to 76 % for males. Mentoring provides more benefits to men than women – 72 % of men received promotions subsequent to mentoring against 65 % of women. There is a special kind of relationship called sponsorship – in which the mentor goes beyond giving feedback and advice and uses his or her influence with senior executives to advocate for the mentee. Women mentors have less organizational clout. 78 % of men had CEO or direct report as mentors but only 69 % of women. Women are still perceived to be risky appointments for senior roles by often male dominated committees. The first critical step is to stop over mentoring and start accountable sponsoring of both sexes. Mistakes Leaders Keep Making by Robert H Schaffer 1 Failing to set proper expectations; 2 Excusing subordinates from the pursuit of overall goals; 3 Colluding with staff experts and consultants; 4 Waiting while associates prepare, prepare, prepare. The seven deadly Sins of Setting Demands: 1 Establishing too many goals; 2 Not requiring a plan for how and when goals be achieved; 3 Failing to push for significant improvement for dear that people are already overwhelmed; 4 Not assigning clear one-person accountability for each key goal; 5 Signalling an unspoken ‘if you possible can’ at the end of a statement or expectation; 6 Accepting reverse assignments; 7 Stating goals in ways that may not be definable or measurable.
The paradox of globalization is that initial success can set up an organization to fail once it reaches the final hurdle. Having a team of people who all think alike will rarely create long term success. Long-term commitments to develop and motivate talented people from all cultures and put them into meaningful roles are essential to the success of global strategies. The Boss as Human Shield by Robert Sutton Good leaders protect their employees from lengthy meetings, meddlesome superiors, and a host of other road blocks to doing real work. Bridging America’s Income Gap by Justin Fox Incomes have sky rocketed for the top 0.1 % of Americas earners while income growth is going nowhere for the bottom 90 %. It is politics and not the economy that produces this skewed result. Why is there no sensible economic or industrial strategy on this? Because corporate lobbyists keep us from having one. Notes by frank@olsson.co.nz 5th September 2010 Harvard Business Review July-August 2010 An interesting special double issue! Three articles drew my interest. One on the purpose of life, one on management is not a profession, and one on strategy. Please find a few notes below. Power Point is Evil by David Silverman If people expect PowerPoint to be an effective all-in-one tool for effective communication, they are asking too much of it. When we rely too much on these tools we become complacent. They create a false sense of urgency and most often don’t come close to effectively communicating valuable ideas and compelling reasons for buy-in. We need to trade in PowerPoint bullets for real action. People change because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings, not because they were given endless amounts of logical data. You need to tap into people’s minds and hearts. The Early Bird Really Does get the Worm by Christoph Randler People whose performance peaks in the morning are better positioned for career success, because they’re more proactive than people who are their best in the evening. The author lists Morning People as Agreeable-optimistic-stable-proactive-conscientious-and satisfied with life and Evening People as Creative-intelligent-humorous-extroverted-neurotic-and depressed (Research study on 367 university students) (Being a morning person I sympathize with the outcome, but feel it is a generalization with limited reliability.) How Will You Measure Your Life? By Clayton M Christensen This is a great article on how skills acquired are only half of who you are (at the most) and unless you know to what use to put them and what you want to achieve with your life all the skills in the world may be almost meaningless. Schools need to also emphasize this aspect and help put learning in perspective. I am of the opinion that the study of Philosophy should be mandatory for universities and business schools. Instead of teaching people what to think we should teach how to think such that they can reach their own informed conclusions. How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my spouse and my family become and enduring source of happiness? How can I be sure I will stay out of Jail? Though the last question sounds light hearted, it is not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes Scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys – but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction. The powerful motivator in our lives is not money; it is the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements. Management is the most noble of professions if it is practiced well. Having a clear purpose in life is essential. Spending an hour every night reading and thinking rather than learning new techniques is a way to allow room for purpose which gives every day meaning. If you don’t know what you are about you will just sail off without rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life. If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you will find that they relate to the disposition toward endeavours that offer immediate gratification. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success. No, Management Is Not a Profession by Richard Barker Although managers can be formally trained and qualified and their social status is similar to that of doctors and lawyers, management is not a profession. Management is about integration which is learned rather than taught. Business education should be collaborative rather than competitive. Whatever you teach students at business schools it doesn’t qualify them to manage, the way a medical or law degree can qualify professionals to exercise their profession. In general, the professional is an expert, whereas the manager is a jack-of-all-trades and master of none – the antithesis of a professional. Yüklə 0,9 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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