Keeping Your Team Motivated When the Company Is Struggling
15/09/2022
It’s not surprising to learn that employee motivation is flagging these days. Fear of a slowing economy has layoffs up 39% in the second quarter of 2022, bringing the year’s total to more than 133,000. On top of that, the great resignation continues to lead employees to exit toxic workplaces characterized by uncaring leaders and […]
In Uncertain Times, the Best Strategy Is Adaptability
13/09/2022
Senior executives often lament, “If we only had better forecasts, we could devise better plans.” They pressure their teams to come up with more accurate projections for how their markets will evolve, competitors will respond, and consumers will react — thinking that forecast precision is the key to defining winning strategies. But attempting to develop […]
Resilient Organizations Make Psychological Safety a Strategic Priority
09/09/2022
The pandemic, geopolitical instability, and unpredictable markets have made organizational resilience like food in the desert: critical for survival, but challenging to grow. By making resilience a strategic priority, leaders ensure that their organizations can stretch and adapt. Much has been written about psychological safety’s role in improving workplace wellness and even in helping stem […]
Managing Shareholders in the Age of Stakeholder Capitalism
07/09/2022
In 2021, Danone’s board of directors, under pressure from activist Bluebell Capital and Artisan Partners, ousted the company’s CEO Emmanuel Faber — a longtime advocate of stakeholder capitalism. This decision puzzled many observers; in an age where the business community seems to be readily embracing stakeholder capitalism, Faber and Danone were stalwarts. Now Unilever — […]
The Inflation Factor: How Rising Food and Energy Prices Impact the Economy
06/09/2022
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the effects of energy supply disruptions are cascading across everything from food prices to electricity to consumer sentiment. In response to soaring prices, many OECD countries are tapping into their strategic petroleum reserves. In fact, since March, the U.S. has sold a record one million barrels of oil per day […]
Leading with Confidence in Uncertain Times
05/09/2022
Serena crunched all the numbers and made the best estimates possible when she was preparing the coming quarter’s sales projections for the product she managed. She used lessons from her graduate studies in statistics and decision science. Informed by historical trends, economic forecasts, and market projections, she estimated a total sales volume of 1,000 units. […]
Digital Transformation Is Changing Supply Chain Relationships
12/08/2022
The digital transformation of businesses is creating new products, processes, and services. But to provide these new offerings, companies must share information and assets with each other in ways that were previously off-limits. For example, digitized services may require competitors to share physical assets such as warehouse space. This, in turn, means that companies will […]
The Great Renegotiation and new talent pools
11/08/2022
It’s the quitting trend that just won’t quit. People are switching jobs and industries, moving from traditional to nontraditional roles, retiring early, or starting their own businesses. They are taking a time-out to tend to their personal lives or embarking on sabbaticals. The Great Attrition has become the Great Renegotiation. Competition for talent remains fierce. For […]
What Makes Innovation Partnerships Succeed
10/08/2022
Breakthrough innovation introduces novel paradigms and platforms, and it creates new product families and economic opportunities. But it’s never a solo act. Even the largest companies need partners. Innovation partnerships offer many advantages. They offset R&D costs, add expertise and flexibility, and help create new markets. They can also accelerate innovation and commercialization timelines — […]
The $100 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart
09/08/2022
Visualizing the $100 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart Surpassing the $100 trillion mark is a new milestone for global economic output. We’ve covered this topic in the past when the world’s GDP was $88 trillion (2020) and then $94 trillion (2021), and now according to the latest projections, the IMF expects the global economy […]
Organizational Transformation Is an Emotional Journey
08/08/2022
The road is littered with failed transformation programs that were set up in the traditional way: Leaders define objectives, design a project plan, agree on KPIs, and recruit the right people. As many executives, academics, and consultants can relate to, the rate of failure in transformations is still far too high, and one that organizations […]
Navigating regulatory uncertainty in packaging: A new wave of chemical-substance regulations
05/08/2022
New, stricter regulations on the use of certain chemicals in the packaging industry are emerging rapidly: restrictions on bisphenol A (BPA) in the European Union and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the United States being two of the most notable. With the recent release of the European Commission’s 2030 “Restrictions roadmap under the chemicals […]
How Greenwashing Affects the Bottom Line
04/08/2022
Consumers today face a barrage of green-friendly messaging from companies hoping to profit from increased concern over environmental issues. Unfortunately, many of these environmental promises don’t pan out. Research carried out in Europe found that 42% of green claims were exaggerated, false, or deceptive, which points to greenwashing on an industrial scale. This is dangerous […]
Ranked: The 20 Countries With the Fastest Declining Populations
03/08/2022
Visualizing Population Decline by Country Since the mid-1900s, the global population has followed a steep upwards trajectory. While much of this growth has been concentrated in China and India, researchers expect the next wave of growth to occur in Africa. As of 2019, for example, the average woman in Niger is having over six children […]
How Leaders Can Escape Their Echo Chambers
02/08/2022
The higher leaders go, the more likely they are to find themselves in an echo chamber, surrounded by people who think like them and agree with them. This occurs partly because of the affinity bias, which leads us to favor, associate with, and hire the people to whom we feel most similar. This dearth of […]
The power of the operating model in customer experience
22/07/2022
Transforming the customer experience (CX) isn’t about playing hard and fast. To succeed in the long game, companies need to manage it systematically. Doing it well is a game changer, which is why more than 70 percent of senior executives rank CX as a top priority for the coming years. Indeed, companies that effectively organize […]
When — and How — to Build Hurdles into a Loyalty Program
21/07/2022
Have you ever signed up for a rewards program, only to discover several months later that your points expired before you had a chance to use them? If so, you’re not alone. Research shows that loyalty program members lose up to a third of the savings they could have earned from these programs due to […]
Interest Rate Hikes vs. Inflation Rate, by Country
20/07/2022
Interest Rate Hikes vs. Inflation Rate, by Country Imagine today’s high inflation like a car speeding down a hill. In order to slow it down, you need to hit the brakes. In this case, the “brakes” are interest rate hikes intended to slow spending. However, some central banks are hitting the brakes faster than others. […]
Does Your Strategy Have a Spine?
19/07/2022
For all the ink spilled on the concept of strategy, it continually proves to be a surprisingly slippery idea. In practice, leaders often struggle to define and communicate strategies to their team. In their 2008 article, “Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?” David Collis and Michael Rukstad don’t mince words: “Most executives cannot articulate […]
Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint
18/07/2022
Do you, as a leader, make an explicit choice to grow? Or do you pay lip service to your growth ambitions and let your resolve falter if profit isn’t immediate? When sustainable, inclusive, and profitable growth becomes a conscious, resolute choice, it shapes decision making across every area of the business. Growth becomes the oxygen […]
Adjusting Your Strategy in a Tight Market
15/07/2022
During the past two decades, corporate scope and priorities were shaped by an abundance of capital. Today the univested capital of private equity funds stands at an all-time staggering high of $3.4 trillion. With such massive liquidity chasing few opportunities, valuations for innovative investments have been high. The prevailing low interest rate environment has only reinforced […]
5 Megatrends Fueling the Rise of Data Storytelling
14/07/2022
Infographic: The Rise of Data Storytelling Humanity is creating more data than ever before, and more of that data is publicly accessible. While “data is the new oil” has almost become a cliché, the impact that data abundance is having on the world is undeniable. All of the world’s most valuable companies are heavily reliant […]
The Pandemic Changed Us. Now Companies Have to Change Too.
13/07/2022
It may sound obvious, but facing our collective mortality for the last two years changed us. Of course, many of us had confronted big challenges in our pre-pandemic lives, but this shared experience was uniquely difficult. One area of our lives that was dramatically altered was our collective perspective related to work. Working under the […]
Customer service excellence in 2022
12/07/2022
The stakes couldn’t be higher as teams try to adapt to a postpandemic era of customer care. Over the past two years, leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home—up to 85 percent of their workforces, in some cases. Contact center employees are harder […]
Your Corporate Purpose Changed. Has Your Strategy Kept Up?
11/07/2022
The key question for leaders tasked with setting corporate strategy is, “What is this company’s ultimate purpose?” Fortunately, the basic approach to answering that question has been clearly articulated by the U.S. Business Roundtable. In August 2019 it issued the “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” signed by 181 CEOs from Apple to Walmart. […]
Why AI Customer Journeys Need More Friction
01/07/2022
In marketing circles, friction has become synonymous with “pain point.” Eradicating it, conventional wisdom goes, is crucial to building a customer-centric strategy that yields competitive advantage. Taking a cue from policy applications of behavioral economics, marketers seek to “nudge” people along the customer journey and remove friction in the battle against “sludge.” At many firms, […]
Future supply chains: resilience, agility, sustainability
30/06/2022
Supply chains matter. The plumbing of global commerce has rarely been a topic of much discussion in newsrooms or boardrooms, but the past two years have pushed the subject to the top of the agenda. The COVID-19 crisis, postpandemic economic effects, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities of today’s global supply chains. […]
Visualizing the Coming Shift in Global Economic Power (2006-2036p)
28/06/2022
Visualizing the Shift in Global Economic Power As the post-pandemic recovery chugs along, the global economy is set to see major changes in the coming decades. Most significantly, China is forecast to pass the United States to become the largest economy globally. The world’s economic center has long been drifting from Europe and North America […]
Will Your Competitive Advantage Work in Other Markets?
27/06/2022
When building a business, the critical first step is to develop a strategy that resonates with your market. But once you’ve crafted that winning strategy, what does it take to successfully translate it into new markets? When companies expand overseas, they often assume the competitive advantages that have made them successful in their home countries […]
How to Make Strategic Trade-Offs
24/06/2022
When CEOs lay out multiple high-level objectives, like increasing market share, entering new markets, and pursuing innovation — all at the same time — they enthusiastically tout the advantages of each. They set ambitious numerical targets. They rally the troops behind the vision. But they rarely talk explicitly about how much value they are willing […]
Capture a digital transformation’s value today
23/06/2022
While some of the obstacles to digital-transformation success are well known, McKinsey Global Survey on digital strategy and investments asked business leaders about the evolution of these challenges, digital tech’s role in their businesses, and companies’ strategic responses. 2 2. The online survey was in the field from January 25 to February 4, 2022, and garnered […]
Using Fiction to Find Your Strategy
22/06/2022
Trying to predict what the future will look like is doomed to fail. Yet this is what most executives do when they strategize. They — we — do this because we have been trained and educated to use trends and statistics to predict what is likely to happen and prepare accordingly. As a result, companies […]
CEOs, Here’s How to Lead in an Era of Constant Change
22/06/2022
Every year I have the privilege to meet with many CEOs and leadership teams to discuss their business. In the past year, nearly every leadership team I’ve sat down with is grappling with the need to make changes and drive transformation. Inflation, geopolitics, supply-chain issues, labour costs, divisiveness, unsettled equity markets, and stakeholder expectations seem […]
Mapping the Migration of the World’s Millionaires
21/06/2022
Mapping the Migration of the World’s Millionaires Throughout 2022, a projected 88,000 millionaires will move to a new country, according to the latest Henley Global Citizens Report. Which countries are these millionaires moving to, and where in the world are they coming from? This graphic maps the migration of high net worth individuals (HNWIs)—people with […]
What Leaders Get Wrong About Resilience
20/06/2022
Resilience, or the continued pursuit of goals despite adversity, is an important issue for organizations, because adversity is inevitable in people’s lives and careers. We all face personal adversities, ranging from the daily stresses of balancing work and home roles to experiences of job loss or the death of a loved one, as well as […]
4 Steps to Creating a Strategy in an Uncertain World
16/06/2022
It hardly needs to be said, but we live in uncertain times. The Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the reshuffling of supply chains and capital structures — the past few years have seen unprecedented disruptions, and the turmoil shows little sign of letting up any time soon. Challenges abound, and companies are finding it […]
Driving sustainable, enterprise-wide performance acceleration
15/06/2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruptor of historic proportions across industries, economies, and lives. In the global pharmaceutical industry, it has caused problems in short-term cash flow and threatened supply reliability. But even before the pandemic, the industry had been facing several hurdles, including the declining value of new launches, challenges to growth in […]
What To Do When the Devil Wears (Your Brand)
14/06/2022
Protecting a brand’s equity and value should be one of an executive’s key responsibilities. Companies buy protection software and use blacklists to stop questionable publishers and endorsers from negatively portraying their brand, for example. But what happens when the brand is displayed unfavorably in an environment that the marketer can’t control? This is exactly what […]
What Leaders Need to Know Before Trying a 4-Day Work Week
10/06/2022
Despite the gains workers have made through the Covid pandemic in increasing flexibility in where they work, bigger workloads have meant that there is little slack in the system for people to take time out and recover. The effects are obvious. In 2020, 62% of people reported that they had experienced burnout “often” or “extremely […]
The Data Storytelling Toolbox: Data Management, Digital Transformation, and Master Data
09/06/2022
Scott Taylor believes in data storytelling. More to the point, he believes that telling a “data story” leads to Data Governance success. Taylor is a consultant and “Data Whisperer” at MetaMeta Consulting, and author of the book, Telling Your Data Story. In his presentation “Data Storytelling for Data Management” at DATAVERSITY®’s Enterprise Data World Conference, […]
What Leadership Development Should Look Like in the Hybrid Era
08/06/2022
As organizations and individuals around the world settle into a blend of in-person and virtual work, we’re learning more about the opportunities and risks hybrid brings. One key concern is leadership development. We know that some of the vital ways in which executives learn on the job — such as serendipitous interactions and informal feedback […]
Which Countries Trust Their Government, and Which Ones Don’t?
07/06/2022
Which Countries Trust Their Government, and Which Ones Don’t? In many countries around the world, vast portions of the population do not trust their own government. Lack of faith in government and politics is nothing new, but in times of uncertainty, that lack of trust can coalesce into movements that challenge the authority of ruling […]
Ensure that Your Joint Ventures Meet Your ESG Goals
06/06/2022
Companies are under intense pressure to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. To date, the lion’s share of management scrutiny and investor activism has focused on wholly-owned or controlled entities. But this worldview contains a sizable blind spot. Many companies hold large and growing portfolios of joint ventures, many of which are equally-owned […]
Flexible work and the innovative organization
06/06/2022
Despite the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—and partly because of it—innovation and digitization have been happening at a record-breaking pace. A McKinsey survey of top executives around the world found that companies accelerated their digitization of customer, supply chain, and internal operations by an average of three years. Indeed, over the past two years, countries […]
The next frontier in consumer goods: Digitally enabled innovation
27/05/2022
With digitally enabled innovation, our work has shown that consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies can bring new products to market 50 percent faster, at a third lower cost, and with double the return on investment. While the industry has embraced new technologies in many parts of the business, from manufacturing to marketing, most organizations are […]
How to Ask for Feedback from an Interviewer
26/05/2022
Susan was certain she’d receive an offer after 10 interviews for a VP-level role, but she ultimately didn’t get the job. She was hesitant to ask for feedback after the exhausting process and assumed it would be fruitless anyway. But after we spent time in coaching discussing how to approach the request for feedback, she […]
Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022
25/05/2022
Mapped: The State of Democracy Around the World The world’s (almost) eight billion people live under a wide variety of political and cultural circumstances. In broad terms, those circumstances can be measured and presented on a sliding scale between “free” and “not free”—the subtext being that democracy lies on one end, and authoritarianism on the […]
The Key to Retaining Young Workers? Better Onboarding.
24/05/2022
It is no news that hiring right now is incredibly difficult. Labor shortages are widespread, young workers are expecting higher starting wages, and after employers hire and train a new employee, the risk that they will jump ship for a better paying job is rising fast. The cost of turnover is high, but it has […]
Why CEOs should care about service operations
23/05/2022
As a CEO, you have a lot of ground to cover, and the way your organization defines, designs, and delivers services has a significant impact on almost all of it. Services matter in every industry, both as a direct source of value and as an enabler of value creation. For some businesses, services are the […]
3 Questions Investors Ask Themselves When Evaluating a CEO
20/05/2022
Market volatility is back. Corporate valuations are under the microscope. Today’s leaders need to demonstrate they can manage through uncertainty and remain agile in the face of one black swan event after another. When it comes to proving valuation, companies tend to focus on the tangibles like revenue growth, market share, and profitability. While these […]
The board’s role in cloud
19/05/2022
Few companies are unaware of the potential benefits of cloud. Far fewer, however, have captured them at scale. For companies looking to increase their speed of innovation, the efficiency of their IT, and the business value their technology generates, finding the formula to unlock cloud’s value is paramount. Boards have an important role to play […]
Balancing Autonomy and Structure for Remote Employees
18/05/2022
As major companies like Google and Apple have begun mandating a return of all employees to the office for a certain number of days per week, the debate about flexibility and autonomy continues to develop. More organizations are taking a firm stance on where they feel their employees should work, once again casting the spotlight […]
Getting strategy wrong–and how to do it right instead
18/05/2022
The word “strategy” means an approach to dealing with a difficult challenge, especially that of competing with a clever opponent. To have a strategy is to have an approach to overcoming critical obstacles and difficulties. However, through many years of working with companies, government agencies, and the military, we have too often seen strategies that […]
How sustainability could change the food system
13/05/2022
It’s not simple to reform a system that more than 500 million farmers, workers, and employees around the world depend on, and that plays a critical role in people’s health. Yet pressure from stakeholders has never been stronger: consumers are demanding sustainable products and services, investors are shifting to sustainable investments, regulators are implementing new […]
The Success of Your M&A Deal Hinges on How You Announce It
12/05/2022
One of the critical mistakes that acquirers make is the mismanagement of Announcement Day, which usually arrives in the form of a carefully staged conference call packed with journalists and analysts — and plenty of excitement. Then investors react to the acquirer’s presentation. For the majority of companies, those reactions come as a harsh surprise, […]
How to Map Out Your Digital Transformation
10/05/2022
At the start of the pandemic, businesses around the globe found themselves exposed to an unexpected boost in digitalization. Those who promised to keep the wheels turning were given carte blanche to do whatever it took to keep a company running. But as many now return to the office, they also realize that the digitalization […]
How procurement leaders can fight inflation
09/05/2022
In the years before the pandemic, rising productivity and declining costs for many inputs—achieved through lean and just-in-time strategies and the globalization of supply chains, among other factors—had allowed many procurement organizations to operate successfully. But now the inflationary surge and frequent scarcity of critical supplies have made shortcomings of the traditional operating model increasingly […]
How Companies Can Prepare for a Long Run of High Inflation
08/05/2022
While consumers generally dislike inflation because it erodes the purchasing power of their income, businesses desire a steady level of inflation because investments made in today’s prices yield higher profits and returns in the future. Governments also like low and steady inflation. With inflation, government’s long-term borrowing needs to be repaid at a lower real […]
Four steps for managing risk at the CEO level
06/05/2022
Adapting to a fast-changing risk landscape has become a priority for most organizations, a necessity made more evident by the global pandemic and recent geopolitical events. At the same time, chief executives are under more pressure than ever to reconcile agendas from multiple stakeholders affecting their organization. The convergence of these two trends means that […]
3 Obstacles to Globalizing a Digital Platform
05/05/2022
As technology progresses, it has become increasingly easy for digital platform companies to reach customers around the globe. This ease of access can make scaling up seem effortless — after all, virtual marketplaces are borderless by nature, and so it can be tempting for these businesses to view the entire world as their target market […]
How Do Big Tech Giants Make Their Billions?
04/05/2022
The Returns of Top Cryptocurrencies in 2021 2021 saw the crypto markets boom and mature, with different sectors flourishing and largely outperforming the market leader, bitcoin. While bitcoin only managed to return 59.8% last year, the crypto sector’s total market cap grew by 187.5%, with many of the top coins offering four and even five-digit […]
Navigating inflation: A new playbook for CEOs
22/04/2022
Last year, policy makers, economists, and financial-market participants fiercely debated the higher inflation then under way. Was it a transitory problem, caused by dislocations from the COVID-19 pandemic that would inevitably fade, or was it a more fundamental and potentially permanent shift? CEOs told us that they viewed this debate as detached from the business […]
How Cofounders Can Prevent Their Relationship from Derailing
21/04/2022
When you start and grow a company with a cofounder, that person becomes your key relationship. There’s no more intimate relationship in business, and yet people often don’t think carefully in advance about how to make those partnerships work. That can be fatal for your venture since, according to Noam Wasserman, author of The Founder’s […]
The Rise of Functional Food: What Investors Need to Know
20/04/2022
Investors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) expect to dramatically increase their sustainable assets. In fact, sustainable assets are projected to grow from 21% of total assets in 2020 to 47% of total assets in 2025. In this graphic we outline the top five ESG challenges that European investors face amid this shift. […]
When to Change Your Company’s P&L Responsibilities
19/04/2022
Most major rearrangements, or “leaps,” involve a change of profit and loss (P&L) responsibility in the organization’s primary dimension. Companies can be organized around product category, region, customer segment, distribution channel, business function, asset, program, major account, or any other value-driving dimension. For example, let’s take consumer goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G). In July […]
Talking to Your Customers About Prices
11/04/2022
A simple take on prices is that they are an obstacle toward the purchase of a desired product or service. Companies, therefore, see a legitimate need to reduce “friction” in the transaction, which they accomplish by reaching into a seemingly bottomless bag of tricks, ranging from the subtle to the egregious. Some companies, for example, […]
The flip side of large M&A deals
08/04/2022
The latest readout of our ongoing Global 2,000 research shows that a large-deal approach to M&A holds more risk than other types of M&A programs—second only to an organic approach, in which a company pursues no M&A. According to the data, the chances that a company using the large-deal approach 1 1. A transaction in which […]
Where We Go Wrong with Collaboration
07/04/2022
Practically everything we do at work is a collaboration. Pre-pandemic, many people spent 85% or more of their time each week in collaborative work — answering emails, instant messaging, in meetings, and using other team collaboration tools and spaces. This number has only grown throughout the pandemic, with no end in sight as we move […]
State of Grocery Europe: Navigating the headwinds
06/04/2022
Disclaimer: The war in Ukraine is having a deep human, as well as social and economic, impact across countries and sectors. The exact implications for grocery retail are still unclear. This article was written before the war started. Our first analysis of the impact of the war indicates that it mostly accelerates the trends we […]
Visualizing the EU’s Energy Dependency
05/04/2022
Visualizing the EU’s Energy Dependency In response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and EU have imposed heavy sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian economy. However, these bold actions also come with some potentially messy complications: Russia is not only one of the world’s largest exporters of energy products, but it is […]
Six customer experience pitfalls to avoid
01/04/2022
In recent years, organizations across sectors have been forced to overhaul many of their processes as the importance of CX has taken center stage. Largely due to the rise in “CX native” companies, customers’ expectations across areas like getting immediate help, maintaining control, and personalization have grown. Meanwhile, privacy concerns have increased, social media has […]
How Much Autonomy Should You Give Your Global Teams?
31/03/2022
When expanding into international markets, how much autonomy should home-office leaders give local teams? Maintaining excessively tight control over your overseas divisions can get in the way of their ability to operate efficiently and make decisions effectively — but giving them too much autonomy can also backfire, leading to quality issues, inconsistencies, duplicated work, and […]
Building new supply-chain management skills for a digital age
30/03/2022
What expertise will your next generation of warehouse managers require? Computer programming? Data analytics? Advanced robotics? Maybe all those things and more. If you are like the 71 global companies that responded to a 2021 supply chain survey, you probably accelerated your investments in digital technology as your supply chain grappled with COVID-19 challenges. What’s […]
Mapped: Global Happiness Levels in 2022
29/03/2022
Mapped: Global Happiness Levels in 2022 What really makes people happy? While countless academic researchers have tried to get to the bottom of this, the truth is, it’s a complicated question to answer. Happiness levels depend on a number of factors, including one’s financial security, perceptions of social support, feelings of personal freedom, and much […]
Supporting Women Leaders, Beyond the Crisis
21/03/2022
The pandemic’s negative impact on women in the workforce will not be reversed for a very long time. In the first year of the pandemic alone, 54 million women around the world left the workforce, almost 90 percent of whom exited the labor force completely. The participation rate for women in the global labor force […]
3 Practices That Set Resilient Teams Apart
18/03/2022
Keeping a team’s energy dialed up through tough times has always been a challenging task — but sustaining resilience in a pandemic? Nobody has written a playbook for that. As Gallup asked in its end of 2021 report: “How can managers be expected to improve the engagement and wellbeing of your workforce if they, themselves, […]
What Stops Leaders from Looking to Other Industries for Inspiration
17/03/2022
As business scrambles to recover from the pandemic, I’ve seen one famous piece of advice doing the rounds: leaders are told to look to other industries for fresh ideas. The classic example is Henry Ford’s invention of the assembly line, an idea he stole from the meat industry. Abbatoirs used a “dissembly line” to shunt […]
Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine
11/03/2022
Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine The modern state of Ukraine was formed nearly 30 years ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, the country has often made headlines due to political instability and the looming threat of a Russian invasion. In the map graphic above, we examine Ukraine from […]
How to Make Sense of Conflicting Feedback on Your Leadership
10/03/2022
I recently sat with an executive, we’ll call him Mark, to review his comprehensive feedback report, which comprised nearly 25 interviews with critical stakeholders. While most feedback contains some contradictory data, in his case, the differences were extreme. Some people described him as supportive and kind while others described him as self-serving and mean-spirited. He […]
A better way to brainstorm
09/03/2022
The dilemma The regional CEO of a large US cosmetics company has invited all the business unit leaders to brainstorm about M&A priorities and potential opportunities in the new year. Everyone knows that digital acquisitions have been a pet project for the senior-leadership team. But some business unit heads believe the company should look at […]