At the threshold of a new year, it's a great time to step back, take stock of what we accomplished and learned, and see what we want to change. Instead of rushing headlong into the next year and learning nothing, for decades now my clients and I have used ten systematic but simple debrief questions that hold the power of genuine renewal.
How could Bill Cosby, the beloved US-entertainer, keep the sexual assaults of at least 27 women under wraps for three decades (if he is ever convicted though he has never been indicted and has declined to discuss the allegations)? He and his bigger-than-life persona, in cahoots with a horde of ferocious lawyers and media handlers, successfully controlled what could be said in public and what the media reported. But viral social media finally brought the full story to light: the other Cosby, the "liar" and "rapist." Should the story be laid to rest, should we leave a patriarchal octogenarian alone and move on, or should Bill Cosby meet justice?
The application of Big Data to Human Resources is transforming how companies hire, fire, and manage performance. The emerging practice of People Analytics allows companies to vet millions of resumes in a split second or monitor every moment of their people's lives. A great advance for unbiased performance management or a disastrous turn toward Big Brother?
I have long known about the power of mind over matter from my own marathons: we used to say that races are 10% physical, 90% mental. Now, in an unusual experiment at Northumbrian University in England, competitive cyclists went beyond their limits of performance. How? The researchers tricked the athletes' brains into believing they were not yet at their peak. Are there lessons for performance management in any field of human endeavor? On the other hand, do such small deceptions work in the long run? And are they desirable, or even permissible?
Want to be more productive? Take a mini mental vacation. There is growing evidence that regular breaks from mental tasks enhance productivity and creativity. The inverse is also true: skipping breaks can lead to stress, exhaustion, and even a shorter lifespan. The most distinguished leaders in history, from Churchill to Mandela, took time out for stillness to tune their moral compass and lead more decisively. (By the way, if reading this blog post distracts you from your work and contributes to your stress level, my apologies. I hope your future times of stillness off the grid will richly compensate you for any anxiety, guilt or other pressures I have caused you here.)
A puzzle for anyone interested in strategy. On the anniversary of 9/11, in the night to Thursday U.S. President Obama declared war on a new terrifying enemy that eclipses even Al Qaeda: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is unlike any foe the United States has ever faced. It has state-of-the-art weapons systems, financial resources, and savvy tactics on social networks. Above all, it has largely autonomous fighters fired by a vision to rebuild the ancient caliphate and by a fanatic ideology of death for anyone who disagrees with them. Will ISIS be defeated? Will the United States and its allies be able to tackle a strategic threat unlike any they have ever seen?
What did Robin Williams, Oscar-winning actor, stand-up comedian, film producer and screenwriter, leave as his main legacy? Was it his prolific productivity in a career that spanned four decades? His irrepressible presence? His frenetic goofiness and wild sense of humor? His humanity and breadth of emotions, from hilarious to depressed and back? From a business strategy point of view, his principal gift to all of us might well be his ability to improvise and think on his feet.
Now that Uruguay's striker Luis Suarez was caught on video again last night, this time sinking his teeth into Italy's defense player Giorgio Chiellini, he could face a lengthy ban from playing soccer if convicted. But Suarez's bite poses larger questions: Is football (my American friends will forgive me for not calling it soccer) a continuation of war with other means? Is it a clash of cultures? And are there national traits that each team expresses in its soccer style?
Non-US authors often go unnoticed in the United States. But Thomas Piketty, the French economist who wrote "Capital in the 21st Century" ("Le Capital au XXIe siècle") has become an economic superstar overnight, and his book an Amazon bestseller. His basic claim, that inequality in the United States has become so excessive that it endangers the superpower's economic foundation and vitality, not to speak of the American Dream, has hit like a bomb and rocked the US establishment; virtually unprecedented for an economist, and for a French author at that, ever since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about America in the 19th century. But is Piketty right?
Have you seen the politically incorrect organization chart on the left? The caption reads as follows: "When top-level guys look down, they see only s---heads; when bottom-level guys look up, they see only a--holes." It's a crude joke (mostly to get your attention), but it shows a kernel of truth: many middle managers find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Jokes aside: the management consulting firm Insigniam last week published its 2014 Middle Management Survey of Global 1000 companies to shed light on the unique predicament of middle managers. The finding is troubling. Middle managers face three key challenges: out-of-touch executives; few promotional opportunities; and insufficient decision-making power. What can C-level executives do to mobilize the perhaps most under-utilized and most ridiculed assets in their organization? And what can middle managers themselves do to take charge and tackle the situation?
David Helfgott, arguably one of the transcendent pianists alive in our time, played at the Tonhalle in Zurich on Wednesday. It was an experience I will likely never forget. His piano recital of works by Scarlatti, Beethoven and Liszt was brilliant. But it was the man and his being that roused the audience to several standing ovations and four encores. Helfgott, who is mentally ill and whose life story was movingly portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie "Shine," showed us something rare: being completely yourself, utterly unguarded and connected with all others around you without armor or mask or censorship. It is a lesson that we as leaders and managers might all heed in a world of egos, hidden agendas and power plays.
Interest: of the devil. Speculation: a sin. Exorbitant profits: amoral. It sounds like a bailout package at the height of the crisis. In reality these are the ground rules of Islamic banking, based on Sharia law and stemming from the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad in the 7th century but offering just about any banking solution of conventional banking, from currency swaps to structured products. What can Islam teach us at a time of greed, growth at all costs, and white-collar financial crime? Is Islamic banking viable for the 21st century? or is it an irrelevant, dogmatic ideology not suited to today's needs? The answer is not trivial: the sector is estimated at $400 billion to $1 trillion that analysts say is growing at 25% annually.
Last April, Warren Buffett spoke at Coca-Cola's annual meeting and warned the beverage giant of being too complacent about its success. His words could hardly have been more prescient. About a year later, Coke is facing major challenges from competitors, health activists and consumers. How can the company weather these strategic assaults? How can it end its dependency on its flagship products, diversify and regain its leadership, especially among young people? Above all, how can Coke show that it cares about its customers' best interests?
If you thought that Amazon is a bookstore or even an online "everything store," you would be (mostly) wrong. Amazon has moved far from its beginnings. Not only is the company revolutionizing the publishing industry through its Kindle, CreateSpace self-publishing, and used-books marketplace; many people don't know, for example, that it is now a major cloud computing platform. Beyond that, you could say that Amazon is a prime example of the "Strategic Organization": it is generating business models faster than any competitor. What is Jeff Bezos's secret?
Mary Barra was named the first-ever female CEO at General Motors, the second largest automaker worldwide, a month ago and has just been named the most powerful woman in business by Fortune magazine, ahead of Ginny Rometti, chairman (sic!) and CEO of IBM, and Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi. Ms. Barra's appointment was celebrated as a milestone in equality. But it turns out that (unless GM hits performance targets) Ms. Barra earns just half of what her predecessor made as GM's CEO in guaranteed compensation. Is that fair? Unfair? Or unimportant?
At the start of a New Year, almost half of us make resolutions to work out more, eat less, be better parents, blow up less, be more grateful, stop smoking or travel the world. Do New Year's resolutions work? Recent research by psychologists shows they work better than we think. But the real cause might be something else. What really works, behavioral economists say, is posting your promises and boxing yourself in. Online witnesses of your commitments raise the stakes and make you much more likely to meet your promises. One site takes this quite literally: tens of thousands of people use StickK.com to make contracts and put money on the line to elevate the price of failure.
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