For most people, titles are important. They validate, provide focus and instil pride in one’s chosen role. Indeed, for some workers, a title is a critical ingredient in their organizational commitment and personal empowerment. Increasingly, businesses are reinventing titles as a means of inciting innovative thinking. And I have long supported the notion that a […]
Read MoreLeadership has been studied for over 80 years without unequivocal or definitive conclusions about its essence. Warren Bennis, a prolific writer on the topic, has suggested that there are more than 850 different definitions of what constitutes leadership. His favourite and most often quoted, I think, is the following: “Managers do things right, leaders do […]
Read MoreAs a leader intent on designing a different kind of future for your organization, where do you start? Some answers are obvious, albeit not necessarily easy to implement. Simply put, you have to boldly start doing things differently. Change comes from questioning heretofore unassailable conventions and smashing the paradigms. If that’s the answer, why is […]
Read MoreNo one, not even the most brilliant, can consistently predict the future with accuracy. Despite the claims of many technical analysts, the markets have never been wholly predictable. That’s because we are incapable of analyzing things that have yet to occur. We analyze history; we predict the future. But how can we do this with some […]
Read MoreLeaders who seek to foster, build and sustain a culture of innovation within their teams or organizations could benefit from a set of rules to guide their actions. For those who seek this guidance, I offer up the following seven “rules” for your consideration: Exert direct, assertive leadership in developing and communicating your innovation vision. […]
Read MoreIf I were to suggest ten commandments to guide today’s chief executives in the task of building innovative, resilient, high-performance teams, my initial list would probably look something like this. THOU SHALT: 1. Have a vision for change and “connect” it to your employees’ reality Don’t expect your organization to change if employees do not […]
Read MoreCreating an organizational culture in which innovation and individual accountability can flourish in tandem requires a different set of skills – the ability to recognize, reconcile and manage the paradoxes inherent in change. Leading and implementing major change initiatives while continuing to deliver high performance is a paradoxical process. While organizations must concentrate on the things […]
Read MoreChange will impact our lives in an infinite number of ways. It will present enormous challenges and unprecedented opportunities. But, with it, will come inordinate stress. Medical research tells us that the greatest stressor in our lives is the inability to change. Which may be why ours is an age of unprecedented strain, headaches and […]
Read MoreWe started producing information faster than we could process it back in 1945. A week-day edition of today’s New York Times contains more information than the average person in 18th Century England was likely to come across in an entire lifetime. In 1971, we were told we saw or heard 560 advertising messages daily. Today […]
Read MoreDriven mostly by technological advances, linear change became exponential change in the last decade of the 20th century. Futurist Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns replaced Moore’s Law as one of the telling benchmarks for illustrating the rapidly increasing speed of change in our lives. Kurzweil, whose predictions in past provide a degree of credibility to […]
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