My last two blogs have focused on gender diversity and the need to design the right approach for your company. My message has been to look at so-called best practices, but don’t just copy them. The key to results is within your company rather than by emulating the failed approaches of others. First, I focused…
A recent HBR blog piece, How Women Drive Innovation and Growth, describes just how large a market women represent, controlling an estimated $20 trillion in global consumer spending — a growth market more than twice as big as India and China combined. It then goes on to make the case for diversity. After all, how…
In a most persuasive HBR blog piece: Women Don’t Need to Lead Better Than Men. They Need to Lead Differently, Debora Spar, President of Barnard College, makes a compelling case for greater gender diversity in senior executive ranks. She points out that only 15% to 20% of women are able to reach this level despite…
A recent HBR Blog piece Closing the Chasm Between Strategy and Execution makes a compelling case for strategists and executors collaborating with each focused on assuring that the others are successful. I’d like to build on this case by looking at who the Executors are and what it really takes to be confident in executing…
Don’t get too comfortable with a paradigm. It’s guaranteed to change. For years it looked like Human Resources was an exception. As consulting firms were reorganizing to go to market by industry, their HR practitioners were pushing back hard, claiming that they were in an area where industry did not matter. From their perspective, shared…
Whether it’s a merger, re-organization, or downsizing it is difficult to motivate employees during times of upheaval. Why? Because most leaders are reading from the “playbook” handed to them by Legal and most likely the change is affecting them personally too. In Authenticity and Leadership I share why I believe Authenticity is at the top…
Dear Earthlings, We have been observing your primitive ways from afar for thousands of years. Finally, we are breaking our silence to stop you from silencing the first generation on your planet that reminds us of ourselves. You are on the verge of seriously messing up your future – the very people who will pay…
If you do a little research, the list of desired leadership qualities will overwhelm you. You will beg for a shorter list. So, here it is: 1. Vision — If you don’t have vision, you can’t lead. There are times where vision requires predicting future consumer demand or competitors’ offerings. If you blow this, you…
It is increasingly being recognized that the key to talent management, innovation and business performance is a strong manager cadre http://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastianbailey/2013/08/15/look-after-the-suits-they-drive-competitive-advantage-more-than-strategy-or-innovators/. Here’s my list of the things managers need to do well to effectively engage employees and drive stronger business results: Be Accessible — Employees have no time for a manger who has no time…
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong impulsively fires an employee, Abel Lenz, last Friday for filming Mr. Armstrong during a conference call delivering a tough message about upcoming cost reduction and layoffs. Then the CEO follows-up with a memo of apology. Not surprisingly, the media gets all over Mr. Armstrong describing him as “going viral.” then, perhaps…