Mindsets are individuals' mental lenses that selectively organize and encode information, thereby orienting them toward a unique way of understanding their experiences and guiding them toward corresponding actions and responses. Decades of research have demonstrated that mindsets are foundational to how individuals process and operate. Despite this research, mindsets have largely been overlooked by practitioners when developing leaders. In this article, we seek to illuminate the foundational role mindsets play in leadership effectiveness to elicit greater emphasis on mindsets in leadership development. To do so, we explore what mindsets are, why they are so important for leadership development and effectiveness, and which mindsets leaders could further develop to operate more effectively. Specifically, we review the research associated with four different sets of mindsets - (1) fixed and growth mindsets, (2) goal orientations, (3) implemental and deliberative mindsets, and (4) prevention and promotion mindsets - to demonstrate how each affects leaders' effectiveness. We conclude by discussing how leadership developers and leaders themselves can focus on mindsets to improve leadership effectiveness.
This article features a moderated conversation between the author and five leading researchers and practitioners in the field of quantitative content analysis and, more specifically, computer-aided textual analysis (CATA). The interview subjects discuss the factors contributing to CATA's rise as a research method as well as the benefits and pitfalls of using CATA. The conversation also covers best-practice advice that companies may employ to increase the accuracy of CATA results. These include using different programs or algorithms for the same problem, known as algorithm error.
As the sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) systems develop and AI becomes a key element of organizational strategy across a wide spectrum of industries, new demands are being placed on senior leaders. To understand the growing challenges leaders will face in the age of AI, we conducted interviews with 33 senior leaders in several countries across a wide range of industries. Our research highlights key capabilities and skills that leaders will require. Underlying these capabilities is a mindset oriented toward continuous learning and self-development, which will enable ongoing and rapid adaptation to change. Our findings identified the following key capabilities: digital know-how, data-driven focus, networking, ethics, and agility. To successfully navigate the coming era, senior leaders will need to focus on reskilling the workforce, recruiting and retaining highly skilled talent, building an intrapreneurial culture, and managing unprecedented changes in technologies and the nature of work.
Why are so few organizations selling beneficial products at the base of the pyramid (BoP) successful? This is not simply a story of companies failing, and it is one with a dramatic consequence as low-income people do not benefit from products that can improve their way of life. Instead, they continue to drink unsafe water, cook on stoves that emit fumes that kill over 1 million people per year, light their homes with dangerous kerosene lamps, and fall ill from a mosquito bite. Based on a multiyear field research program conducted in 25 countries, we argue that having a specific mindset about BoP customers is consequential to an organization's success. Many organizations start with the assumption that BoP customers lack money, knowledge, and jobs. By contrast, successful organizations start from the assumption that customers can and will pay if they are provided with a satisfactory solution to their needs and are reassured about the level of risk involved. We detail the different practices that follow from this mindset change in the areas of value proposition, communication, and distribution and show how these practices can make or break the organization's financial sustainability.
As the workplace continues to change, a new generational cohort - Generation Z, sometimes referred to as iGen - is beginning to enter the workforce. At the same time, millennials are now progressing in their careers and will be challenged with managing these incoming workers. The purpose of this article is to provide a contextual overview that identifies and illuminates some of the defining work-related characteristics of these two youngest generations in the workplace to increase understanding of the potential intergenerational conflict between these cohorts and develop leadership strategies that can be utilized to increase employee morale and productivity. This article analyzes the millennial supervisor-Gen Z subordinate relationship based on generational cohort theory, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, and the work values framework.
Firms face various critical challenges when pursuing a coherent course of action that seeks to create value for the long term. They are required to balance myopic and hyperopic behavior. They must ensure coordination, adopt a holistic view of various functional perspectives, and foster commitment among key decision makers. They need to develop a credible and compelling line of reasoning that employees understand and can act on. Adopting the perspective of roadmapping as a strategy tool, this article advances the argument that roadmapping is especially suitable in helping firms to surmount these three critical strategic challenges. This article distills three core features of the roadmap: graphical representation, multidisciplinary integration, and scaling. It then reviews the three critical strategic challenges and shows how roadmapping can help to overcome each of these. Following this explanation, the article describes ten key principles for effective strategic roadmapping that support firms in obtaining the strategic benefits promised. The article concludes with additional insights for practice with the intent of encouraging further exploitation of roadmapping's potential.
A large body of research has well established that changes in net balances between labor supply and demand can drive competition for human capital. We propose that AI-enabled recruiting tools constitute a force that will intensify the war for talent above and beyond episodic changes in net balances. We also propose that three seismic shifts will further intensify the war for talent by increasing the value of human capital and lowering its switching costs. Lastly, we bridge human resource management and military escalation literatures and examine how three key onset conditions relative to the use of AI-enabled recruiting tools have the potential to spark an arms race for those tools. Finally, we examine the managerial implications of these dynamics so that managers prevail not just in short-term skirmishes but also in the long-term war for talent.
Until its highly publicized downfall, Theranos was a so-called unicorn with a compelling proposition to popularize routine blood testing by making it more convenient, using a smaller sample of blood, and testing at a lower cost than conventional, often fear-inducing needles. Holmes and Theranos were reliant on the development of new technology to bring their idea to life. Instead, they became perhaps one of the most infamous examples of failed product innovation. In this article, we contend that although character failings and alleged criminal activity could not have been mitigated realistically, valuable strategic and operational lessons can be learned for future technology startups. By conducting a counterfactual thought experiment and examining Theranos through the lens of Design Innovation (DI), we provide evaluations and predictions across strategic and operational constructs from both an internal and external perspective. We use Theranos to demonstrate the value of DI to future technology-driven entrepreneurs, proposing alternative approaches to medical device startups.
Negotiation abilities are difficult to assess, and negotiation outcomes are difficult to predict. This leads to possible deficiencies in resource allocation for negotiation tasks. In this article, we discuss the merits of a data-based approach for the allocation of negotiators to negotiation tasks. We provide a framework for negotiation allocation management that includes a method for assessing negotiator strength. The negotiator strength measure compares observable negotiation outcomes relative to similar outcomes in similar situations. We provide examples for using our framework and show evidence for its appeal when using industry data. We discuss implications for managers and provide key takeaways.
In the last two decades, industry-university collaborations (IUCs) in research and development in the hard sciences have become increasingly more successful and common. In contrast, successful IUCs in softer social sciences, such as business, remain relatively uncommon. But business research requires an even higher degree of collaboration than research in the hard sciences if its results are to be relevant to businesspeople. Fortunately, business academics are becoming more and more interested in collaborating with businesspeople. The purpose of this article is to motivate businesspeople to collaborate as well. We do this by showing the businessperson the historical origins of business research's irrelevance, by describing the benefits the business world could receive from collaborative research, by showing why collaboration is especially needed in social sciences such as business, and by showing why academics cannot do relevant business research without practitioners' help. Specifically, we will show that the businessperson's help is needed to ensure that their priorities are met, to formulate the right research questions, to provide relevant data, and to contribute their problem solving inventiveness.
Changing employers has been linked to larger pay increases for executives and managers. Although survey-based studies suggest that men gain more than women, an analysis of more than 2,000 job moves found that executive women are commanding bigger increases than men when switching employers. In certain contexts, female executives can use these external moves to increase their own compensation and perhaps narrow the gender pay gap overall.
Teladoc and Livongo had ridden the tailwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic-and a merger between the two would offer a "one-stop-shop" for technology-driven care for patients with acute, chronic, and specialty care needs. The case study describes the regulatory history of telemedicine in the United States, and the licensing barriers that had inhibited virtual doctors' visits-until the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic forced urgent changes to the ways doctors and patients interacted. Would the Teladoc business model-and the proposed merger with Livongo-help establish the company firmly in the increasingly competitive telemedicine field? Analysts projected the telehealth space would grow at a compounded annual growth rate of more than 20 percent over the coming years. Livongo, with 147 million members, offered software and personalized health coaching to address diabetes, hypertension, behavioral health, and weight management. Did this acquisition make sense for Teladoc?
In December 2020, Mary Kay Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sheryl Adkins-Green considered several strategic dilemmas. Founded in 1963 by Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay was a direct sales company whose Independent Beauty Consultants purchased its beauty and cosmetics products at wholesale and sold them to end-consumers at retail. As the coronavirus pandemic spread in 2020, Mary Kay worked to equip its Consultants with digital tools and strategies to help them run their businesses remotely. Adkins-Green and the Mary Kay team were now looking for ways to continue refining the company's digital approach and product sampling strategy. Looking beyond COVID-19, Adkins-Green and her team had several other big questions to consider around product innovation, the competitive landscape, navigating the digital world and its implications for retail, and communicating its brand values to the next generation-all while honoring and staying true to the rich history, heritage, and culture that had served as the foundation of Mary Kay for the past 57 years.
Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), the Seattle-based e-commerce giant, leaped into China with a buyout of Joyo.com Limited, China’s largest online book, music, and video retailer, in 2004. Amazon had the ambition of becoming the dominant online retailer in China by capitalizing on its globally recognized brand, cutting-edge technologies, and advanced business model and philosophy. In the following years, China’s e-commerce industry experienced exponential growth, representing a golden opportunity for technology firms. For Amazon, however, many challenges started to surface, including intense competition from Alibaba Group Holding Limited and JD.com Inc., which limited Amazon’s growth. In 2018, as China’s e-commerce industry quickly became one of the world’s largest, Amazon had to determine what its next steps should be.
In January 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Polycorp Ltd., near Toronto, Ontario, needed to decide whether to cut prices for products produced by the largest of the company’s three divisions, the mining division. Polycorp had become a global leader in providing protective rubber liners for mining mills. The liners were consumable products, thus generating a constant stream of revenue. The company’s mining division accounted for almost half of the firm’s sales, generated the highest margins for the company, and had the greatest potential for growth. It was also the costliest division to run. But the mining sector was in a downturn, with falling prices for various ores. With excess capacity in the industry, customers demanding price concessions, and competitors pricing aggressively, the founder wondered if Polycorp should alter its current premium pricing strategy for mill liners. Lowering prices would reduce the company’s margins, and lower margins would, in turn, limit the firm’s planned capital investments, which were needed for the company to sustain its growth and profitability. Could Polycorp sustain its premium pricing tactic in a marketplace that was becoming increasingly challenging?
Ashish Interbuild Private Limited (AIPL) was a mid-sized founder-driven turnkey fit-out firm based in India. The firm executed prestigious fit-out projects across the country, and it had been making steady progress every year since its founding. Faced with an increasing workload, Ashish Thakkar, the founder and managing director, had decided to change the firm’s operating model from an owner-led model to one that was people- and process-driven. To manage the transition smoothly, he had to decide on the most appropriate management control model for the firm. The two management control models proposed to Thakkar stood in stark contrast to each other, each with its own strengths. It was crucial for Thakkar to select the appropriate control fit for AIPL neither too tight nor too loose. An inappropriate model could lead to chaos, employee dissatisfaction, financial loss, a damaged firm reputation, and even potential bankruptcy. Although there were good reasons to pursue either of the two proposed alternatives, it was vital to determine which control system was best suited to the firm.
Concentrix Corporation (CNX), a technology enabled global business services organization, supported a transport solutions company with its customer management services. In June 2019, CNX’s global customer services operation manager carried out an assessment and found irregularities in the credit claim process for CNX’s client. The manager needed to reduce the number of irregularities so that CNX’s agents did not create a negative experience for the client. Random samples for audit revealed that existing guidelines and control procedures were ineffective in capturing irregularities. What strategy did the manager need to select a sample for audit that could capture the maximum number of irregularities within the allowable audit cost?
This supplement to Hopax (A), product number 9B10M004, recounts the events that followed until 2008 and explains how the company applied principles of judo strategy to become the second largest supplier of repositionable notes in the world.