Collaboration is taking over the workplace. According to data collected by the authors over the past two decades, the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more. There is much to applaud about these developments-but when consumption of a valuable resource spikes that dramatically, it should also give us pause. At many companies, people spend around 80% of their time in meetings or answering colleagues' requests, leaving little time for all the critical work they must complete on their own. What's more, research the authors have done across more than 300 organizations shows that the apportionment of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 20% to 35% of value-added collaborations come from only 3% to 5% of employees. The avalanche of demands for input or advice, access to resources, or sometimes just presence in a meeting causes performance to suffer. Employees take assignments home, and soon burnout and turnover become real risks. Leaders must start to manage collaboration more effectively in two ways: (1) by mapping the supply and demand in their organizations and redistributing the work more evenly among employees, and (2) by incentivizing people to collaborate more efficiently.
No matter how approachable you may be as a manager, chances are good that your employees are withholding valuable intelligence from you. Research shows that many people are more likely to keep mum than to raise important questions or suggest new ideas. Companies use a variety of tactics to get people to open up, like "climate" surveys and all-staff feedback sessions. But they usually fall short for two key reasons: a fear of consequences and a sense of futility. In this article, two professors look at how leaders' misguided attempts to promote candid expression fail to address-and sometimes stir up-those feelings. For example, if you ask for anonymous input, you may be signaling that it's not safe to speak openly in your organization. And if you don't act on feedback, employees will quickly come to believe that providing it is pointless. But there are several ways to create a much more vocal culture, say the authors. To make idea sharing less intimidating, tone down the power cues with employees, and gather feedback in regular, casual exchanges. Be transparent about the processes for gathering and following up on ideas. And if you really want to know what people think, go ask them. Research shows that when employees do speak up, organizations see increased performance. So getting all this right pays off-both for workers eager to make contributions and for their firms.
Thanks to powerful ideation approaches such as design thinking and crowdsourcing, it has become incredibly easy and relatively inexpensive for companies to obtain a vast number of novel concepts, from both insiders and outsiders such as customers, designers, and scientists. Yet many organizations still struggle to identify and seize big opportunities. That's because major changes in society and technology fundamentally challenge the conventional understanding of what is valuable, rendering obsolete whatever criteria companies are using to identify customer problems they could address. To see which ideas truly have potential, managers need new assessment criteria. From studying and working with 24 companies that have succeeded in capturing big opportunities, the author has devised a process to create such criteria--one that is rooted not in the art of ideation but in the art of criticism. It engages a company's own employees and helps them articulate their individual visions. These are then compared and discussed, first in pairs and later in a group, in order to distill them into a handful of even better proposals. The views of outsiders are sought only at the end.
Algorithms tend to be myopic. They focus on the data at hand--which often pertains just to short-term outcomes. Algorithms are powerful predictive tools, but they can run amok when not applied properly. Consider what often happens with social media sites. Today many use algorithms to decide which ads and links to show users. But when these algorithms focus too narrowly on maximizing click-throughs, sites quickly become choked with low-quality content. While clicks rise, customer satisfaction plummets. The glitches, say the authors, are not in the algorithms but in the way we interact with them. Managers need to recognize their two major limitations: First, they're completely literal; algorithms do exactly what they're told and disregard every other consideration. While a human would have understood that the sites' designers wanted to maximize quality as measured by clicks, the algorithms maximized clicks at the expense of quality. Second, algorithms are black boxes. Though they can predict the future with great accuracy, they won't say what will cause an event or why. They'll tell you which magazine articles are likely to be shared on Twitter without explaining what motivates people to tweet about them, for instance. To avoid missteps, you need to be explicit about all your goals--hard and soft--when formulating your algorithms. You also must consider the long-term implications of the data the algorithms incorporate to make sure they're not focusing nearsightedly on short-term outcomes. And choose the right data inputs, being sure to gather a wide breadth of information from a diversity of sources.
When you look at the top people in a given industry, you often find that many of them once worked for the same well-known leader. In the NFL, 20 of 32 head coaches trained under Bill Walsh or someone in his coaching tree. Dozens of top hedge fund managers got their start under Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. Nine of Larry Ellison's top execs became CEOs, COOs, or chairs of other companies. The list goes on: Jay Chiat, Alice Waters, Bob Noyce, Lorne Michaels, and Mary Kay Ash are all known for grooming extraordinary people who became leaders in their fields. After conducting deep research into the practices of these superbosses, Tuck professor Finkelstein found similarities in their "people strategies." In hiring, they focus on intelligence, creativity, and flexibility; look for unconventional talent; and adapt roles and even organizations to suit people. In development, they set high expectations, build master-apprentice relationships, and encourage fast, step-change growth. All of us can borrow from their playbook to improve our own ability to identify and hone talent.
The CEO of Tots & Teens, an apparel company headquartered in New Jersey, learns at a company party that one of the factories in Bangladesh where T&T's clothing is made has just collapsed in the middle of a workday, killing more than 2,000 workers. She and her COO immediately fly to Dhaka to visit the disaster site and plan their response. Aside from finding a way to support the victims and their families and to tighten up oversight of the company's supply chain, they must decide whether to move production to a factory in China in order to get the fall line out in time. With expert commentary from John Manners-Bell, the CEO of Transport Intelligence, and Adam K. Kanzer, a managing director of Domini Social Investments.
The CEO of Tots & Teens, an apparel company headquartered in New Jersey, learns at a company party that one of the factories in Bangladesh where T&T's clothing is made has just collapsed in the middle of a workday, killing more than 2,000 workers. She and her COO immediately fly to Dhaka to visit the disaster site and plan their response. Aside from finding a way to support the victims and their families and to tighten up oversight of the company's supply chain, they must decide whether to move production to a factory in China in order to get the fall line out in time. With expert commentary from John Manners-Bell, the CEO of Transport Intelligence, and Adam K. Kanzer, a managing director of Domini Social Investments.
The CEO of Tots & Teens, an apparel company headquartered in New Jersey, learns at a company party that one of the factories in Bangladesh where T&T's clothing is made has just collapsed in the middle of a workday, killing more than 2,000 workers. She and her COO immediately fly to Dhaka to visit the disaster site and plan their response. Aside from finding a way to support the victims and their families and to tighten up oversight of the company's supply chain, they must decide whether to move production to a factory in China in order to get the fall line out in time. With expert commentary from John Manners-Bell, the CEO of Transport Intelligence, and Adam K. Kanzer, a managing director of Domini Social Investments.
In the seven years since Don Blanchon was hired as the Chief Executive Officer of Whitman-Walker Health, it had transitioned into a primary care-based community health center and a patient-centered medical home serving a diverse population in a rapidly changing area of Washington, DC. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 would, in Blanton's view, increase access to providers for WWH's patient population, thereby increasing the competition. The implications of this change left senior management with unresolved strategic questions. Should WWH pursue a "hybrid FQHC model," a new location, new services, or a future strategic partnership with a large health system? What should the next direction be for WWH, and how should it get there?
Peter Drucker once said that healthcare organizations "are the most complex form of organization that we have ever attempted to manage." In this wide-ranging interview, an American health-sector strategy expert working in Canada explains why Drucker's statement is true. He goes on to describe the need for patient-centric care and the importance of focusing on the social determinants of health. He also compares the Canadian and U.S. systems, the pros and cons of each, and what a truly sustainable healthcare system would look like. In the end, he shows the power of markets in the quest for population health.
'Fit' companies don't get that way by accident: they intentionally pursue a course of action that makes them stronger and more agile over time. The author, a long-time consultant to Toyota and an expert on its lean system, presents nine steps to creating a culture of continuous improvement. In the end, he argues, the biggest benefit of embracing this approach is not just improved processes and better-quality outputs: it is the growth and development of your employees-the ones who will make continuous improvement a reality.
One of the iconic developments of the 21st century is the growth of cities: by 2050, the number of citizens living in urban areas is expected to exceed 75 per cent-up from 53 per cent today. The implications are varied, and the authors look at them through a health lens. They describe five key aspects of urban life that must be carefully considered if people are to thrive in the world's cities. These include 'the primary education of girls' and 'commercial innovation capacity'. They then describe the ISO-approved framework developed by the World Council on City Data, which one of the authors heads up, which ranks the world's cities on a number of key elements of overall population health-including issues around water and sanitation and environmental safety. Going forward, they argue, this framework will allow for comparisons between the world's cities-and targeted responses.
The author describes how forward-looking employers are developing new initiatives that promote employee health and well-being, everything from on-site health screenings to exercise equipment and meditation classes. The results: fewer absences, higher productivity and greater worker retention. After describing the importance of deciding who your program is for and which health issues to address, she provides a six-ingredient recipe for leaders to design and implement a program that suits their organizational culture. In the end, she shows that you don't have to turn all your employees into super-athletes addicted to blueberry smoothies for your investment to pay off: even a small reduction in workforce health risks will enable you to and reap the rewards of a healthier workforce.
When Google famously allowed its engineers to spend 20 per cent of their time pursuing a passion, Chade-Meng Tan decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: creating the conditions for world peace within his lifetime. After much research and consultation with scientists, monks, academics and more, he concluded that the road to peace was paved with compassion-the happiest brain state ever recorded by neurologists. His initiative now had a focus, and soon, his Search Inside Yourself program was being delivered at Google and other forward-thinking organizations. He describes his journey and what he believes lies ahead if we are able to scale compassion.
On issues big and small, people often don't make the best possible decisions for the long term. The authors argue that the root cause of this sub-optimal decision-making is that our behaviour is guided by two types of processes: System 1 thinking and System 2 thinking. Whereas System 1 tends to operate effortlessly and automatically, the operations of System 2 are slower, more effortful and deliberate. System 1 judgments are based on perceptions, intuitions and emotions, while System 2 judgments in-depth logical analysis and reasoning. Not surprisingly, on a day-to-day basis, System 1 guides much of our behaviour. They introduce The Hot-Cold Decision Triangle, a framework that can enable better choices by enabling us to avoid the power of visceral urges.
While they appear to have little in common, time and money are frequently interchangeable. Researchers refer to the amount of time that people spend in an unpleasant mood - when feelings of tension, depression or irritation outweigh feelings of happiness - as the 'U-index'. For instance, people are rarely in an unpleasant mood while exercising, reading or praying; but unpleasant moods are common while working, commuting and doing housework. Sadly, over the past 50 years, the overall U-index has barely budged. The authors show that by re-allocating our time in three key areas - commuting, watching television and spending time with loved ones-we can impact our happiness in a more powerful way than money every can.
For most of human history, people over the age of 65 have not exceeded three or four per cent of any country's population. In today's developed world, they comprise roughly 15 per cent-and by 2050, this could reach 25 per cent. The pace of aging is also projected to accelerate in developing countries: by 2050, the global number of people over 60 will reach two billion - three quarters of whom will be from developing countries. The implications for business are many and varied. The authors describe four industries where the impact will be particularly strong. In the end, they provide a starting point for leaders to contemplate - and perhaps, begin to shape - what lies ahead, and show that this long-term discussion will be interdisciplinary in nature and will cut across business, government, and societal levels.
Every so often, a society leaps forward to a fundamentally 'new equilibrium': the status quo is left behind - even if it had held for centuries. The revolutionary thinkers leading the charge powerful new ways to structure our systems, fundamentally altering how they work. This, write the authors, is the realm of the social entrepreneur. In this article they describe how one such duo of intrepid thinkers and actors went about creating transformative change in Africa. They describe the progress made by Riders for Health to bring healthcare to the furthest regions of rural Africa in a dependable, sustainable manner. In the end, they show that for social entrepreneurs, it is not enough to imagine a way to reduce suffering: their vision is for systemic change. It shifts an existing equilibrium to a new one - one that ensures an optimal new condition for those who had been disadvantaged by the prior state.
One in four adults will suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder that impairs their social, interpersonal or occupational functioning, and as a result, mental illness has become a leading global health concern. It is further estimated that the percentage of the population with an undiagnosed mental disorder is almost equivalent to those with diagnosed disorders, and that many of mental illness also have substance abuse problems. Given that these issues are so prevalent in the working population, managing employees with ongoing or episodic mental health conditions is a job demand that most managers are likely to face. The authors examine what is required to equip managers - and ultimately, organizations - to deal with these complex situations. They provide a four-step model that begins with 'Becoming aware of a mental health issue' and ends with 'Reflecting on the experience'