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.
Nelson Mandela's death might be a fitting moment in time to step back and reflect on his leadership, and on ours. What can you and I learn from Madiba? And what kind of leader do you and I want to be? Three principles jump out that turned Mandela into the transcendent leader he eventually became.
In the new movie "Jobs" based on Walter Isaacson's biography, Steve Jobs comes across as an "enlightened being with an evil streak," as a former girlfriend put it. (He had got her pregnant, only to throw her out of his house saying "I have no time for this, I'm building Apple"; it would take him 17 years to recognize their daughter as his.) Jobs's life and supreme success as a technology innovator, and his repeated cheating of colleagues without whom he could not have done it, face us again with the age-old Machiavellian question: Do nice people finish last? Do you have to walk all over people to get ahead?
Researchers at the New School for Social Research in New York City found that if you read literary fiction for a few minutes, you will be better prepared for difficult negotiations, blind dates or interviews. Does literature build social skills, empathy and emotional intelligence? Is it time to add a little high-brow literature to the daily leadership regimen?
The Americans who called for a boycott of Stolichnaya vodka meant well: They protested Vladimir Putin's new law banning "homosexual propaganda" and what they saw as a rising tide of state-sponsored homophobia in Russia. The only problem: Stoli is not made in Russia but in Latvia. The lesson: Before you target a transnational campaign, do your homework.
Recently we covered the culture clash between Oprah Winfrey and a Swiss salesperson. They are not alone: what is more challenging for any global executive than managing across cultures and value systems? The inability to see the world from a counterpart's point of view and decode their mind-set has derailed many a promising cross-border venture. Join Thomas D. Zweifel, author of "Culture Clash 2," in a series of VoiceAmerica radio interviews that could change the way you think and manage as a global executive.
It has not been a good week for Switzerland's international image, said the Financial Times on Sunday. That turned out to be a typical British understatement. Newspapers and networks around the world branded Switzerland a haven of xenophobes and racists. What actually happened in the Zurich shop when Oprah asked for that $35,000 handbag? It's yet another culture clash.
How do you do strategy in a complex, global and uncertain environment? Ed Borey, serial CEO and turnaround guru, and I are pleased to announce the publication (finally, after seven years) of our new book Strategy-In-Action: Marrying Planning, People and Performance. As one CEO puts it, the book "is highly systematic, but still manages to keep the human element at the core of strategy." A free excerpt is at Amazon.com.
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