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An effective board of directors is a prerequisite to a well-managed company. However, the components of an effective board are often neglected. Most boards lack a plan and instead conduct simple, routine board evaluations. Instead, they should determine key objectives and agree on what they want to accomplish in the future. They should not only provide corporate oversight, but should collaborate with management in running the company. Furthermore, consideration must be given to whether the roles of chairperson and CEO should be separated. Any board that creates a plan needs to hold itself accountable for achieving it. Unfortunately, many board members tell managers that performance and accountability are critical, but then bring a “tenure mentality” to the board. While both independence and diversity can be important considerations in the composition of a board, real performance and contribution are equally crucial. Ultimately, board culture must change. A board is not a dinner party; the shift from a friendly, collegial culture to a performance culture is essential.

Fire captains have only a few short minutes to pull together their team, develop an action plan, and communicate the situation to all team members. This article outlines some basic principles of firefighting and reveals lessons that business leaders can draw from firefighters regarding how to mobilize teams to address dynamic problems. 1) Simplicity: While problems are complex, the teaming process should be simple and the structure should provide all team members with a shared mental model. 2) Flexibility: This allows adjustments to a changing environment. 3) Standardization: Having a common approach to and understanding of team functioning is critical. 4) Modularity and Scalability: Allows leaders to add or scale down resources. 5) Unity of Command: One person takes on the leadership role. 6) Information Management: Business teams need to continuously collect information relevant to the problem. 7) Accountability: All functional areas and team members remain responsible for their actions. 8) Critique and Debrief: All team leaders must report on their performance, underline success factors, and reveal areas for improvement. 9) Interoperability and Integrated Communication: Allows team members from multiple levels and functions to work together on large-scale problems.

Innovative, high-performing workplace cultures enable business success. This article uses interviews with executives, researchers and authors to identify obstacles, enablers and solutions for workplace culture. Key obstacles to healthy workplace culture include poor leadership, employees’ selfish ambitions, and years of ingrained culture. Enablers of winning culture include employees believing firm success to be related to their own success, as well as open dialogue between leaders and employees. Leaders should define and share a clear picture of what the desired workplace should look like. They should also establish trust and embrace management training, while aligning culture, goals and performance. As this article explains, CEOs should understand the existing workplace culture and evaluate the tolerance for change; create a clear, shared vision of what they want the new culture to look like; be honest about why they are changing the culture, and about their own leadership abilities; take care of their team and ensure that team members feel connected; and build a strong management system and framework.

Inflation-adjusted CEO pay at Canadian big banks has nearly quadrupled since the early 1990s, leaving many observers outraged. The author suggests a benchmark for CEO pay at Canadian big banks that would effectively halt the ongoing pay escalation while allowing banks to stay competitive. He recommends that annual grant-date target total CEO pay should remain flat at $10 million until it is indexed to 100 times the median Canadian family income (i.e. until the median family income surpasses $100,000, from the current median of $70,000). This would not mean that actual realized pay would be flat at $10 million, as pay on incentives would continue to vary, and this benchmark could be implemented immediately without major pay cuts. It would also return CEO pay at the Canadian big banks to where it was at the end of the 1990s, before the dot-com bubble. Many boards, when setting executive pay, assume the transferability of executive talent as a reason to keep raising CEO pay. Yet opportunities for CEOs to switch from one CEO role to another are rare and often fraught with problems. In reality, the level of CEO pay matters less to many CEOs than their perception of that pay relative to their peers’ pay.

One effective technique that a company can use to encourage innovative thinking is to imagine what it might have to do if its assumptions (e.g. about customer needs, costs and product design) are no longer valid — that is, to use “contrarian assumptions.” This article proposes ten no-cost, contrarian ideas that firms and individuals can apply to improve innovation and productivity. 1) Innovation is something everyone should strive for in their products, services and activities. R&D teams may not be needed if innovation targets and key performance indicators are present. 2) A meeting agenda should not feature a list of topics, but a list of questions. 3) Meetings should be held in spaces that encourage innovation, not just in the boardroom. 4) Meetings should be run in a way that suits the specific problem. 5) Three feasible answers should always be proposed for a problem, rather than one. 6) The prevailing assumptions in an industry are only held dear by the current players. 7) Emotion, far from having no place in business, is the root of loyalty, service and gaining buy-in. 8) Perfect certainty cannot be acquired before taking action; hold only three meetings on a specific problem. 9) Reward not only successful innovations, but also successful efforts. 10) Innovation does not come primarily out of research labs.

If leadership is important to performance, then followership must be too, yet followership is a comparatively neglected concept. This article defines followership as the ability to take direction well, adhere to a program, be part of a team and deliver what is expected. In fact, how well followers follow is almost as important as how well leaders lead. The article identifies eight qualities of followers. 1) Judgment: The key is knowing the difference between a directive that a leader gives that is questionable and a directive that is truly wrong. 2) Work Ethic: This includes diligence, motivation, commitment, attention to detail, and effort. 3) Competence: Followers must be competent, although leaders are obligated to assure this. 4) Honesty: Followers owe leaders honest and forthright assessments, especially when a leader’s agenda seems flawed. 5) Courage: Followers need the courage to be honest. 6) Discretion: Gossiping and speaking inappropriately about work matters is unhelpful and often harmful. 7) Loyalty: This is particularly important when problems exist with leaders. 8) Ego Management: Followers need to remember that they are team players.

Governments around the world are strained financially, yet the potential of the crowd has begun to transform the way firms do business, the way ideas come to fruition, and the way social change is catalyzed. While governments increasingly offer web services that reflect citizens’ needs, there is great scope for the internal equivalent. Beyond better linkages between departments, there are at least three ways that governments can harness the wisdom of the crowd internally: a) pool resources, b) encourage agency-to-agency services and c) explore government-to-government services. Effective governments should also take steps to harness the crowd externally. Policymakers and public managers may consider the potential of the crowd in three key areas: a) the delivery base (e.g. Seniors Helping Seniors in the United States), b) the funding base (e.g. social finance) and c) the evidence base (e.g. crime mapping in Chicago). Ultimately, there are three ways to accelerate the diversification of delivery models, funding options, and evidence-based policy making: a) open up government, b) get better at working with the small details of citizens’ lives and c) trust the ability of citizens to make decisions and help shape the services they receive.

Strategic planning is among the most widely used and, often, abused management terms. This article attempts to show some of the misconceptions in the strategic planning process and to touch upon the strategic planning process in a corporate setting. It defines “strategic” and then presents a seven-part framework that practicing strategic planners can use to craft strategies for their organizations: 1) Get clarity on the boundary conditions and on the specific decision criteria upfront. 2) Conduct an industry analysis. 3) Conduct a status quo analysis to see where the firm might be in the near future in the absence of strategic planning. 4) Generate strategic options — often the most complicated step — by articulating the logic behind decisions without moving directly to the evaluation stage. 5) Assess and evaluate options using financial analysis and modern tools of sensitivity analysis and scenario planning. 6) Articulate a strategic roadmap, including goals, risks, returns, investments, etc. 7) Deploy the strategy, using a tool such as the Balanced Scorecard. The article finishes by explaining the difference between budgeting and strategic planning, terms often confused.

Marketers face new challenges in the era of crowdsourced opinions, where sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp allow consumers to share opinions that may contradict marketing messages. This article identifies ten sources of influence that can sway consumers, four of which (social networks, opinion aggregators, recommendation engines, and price comparison services) have only gained prominence recently. With the shift from traditional marketing channels to digital realms, consumers now comprehensively inform themselves, loudly inform others, and make purchase decisions at their own pace. Marketers can take four approaches in order to gain value from the crowd. 1) Endorse the crowd: Bringing the “voice of the crowd” into marketing efforts can provide the credibility and authenticity that consumers seek. 2) Venture among the crowd: Engaging with consumers directly, e.g. through social media, can highlight a company’s transparency and build trust with consumers. 3) Listen to and learn from the crowd: Monitoring online discussions of user needs, desires, and trends can provide highly valuable data. 4) Invite the crowd inside: Companies like WebMD offer users a diverse portfolio of guidance and a useful forum in which to hold their own conversations.

Though the leadership deficit in India is widely recognized, few companies have successfully addressed it. The challenge manifests itself in a quantity deficit, where few qualified candidates for managerial positions exist and leaders do not retire soon enough; an experience deficit, where young, inexperienced managers are launched into senior positions; and a talent war, where competition for talent is intense and companies realize that leaders they have cultivated could be hired by rival firms at any time. The main causes of India’s leadership challenges are a) demographics: India is a young nation lacking a large supply of experienced leaders; b) the booming economy: the pace of growth has placed great demand on the supply of talent; and c) a technology mindset: Indian business leaders have focused on developing technology rather than people. Building leaders from the bottom up involves five steps: 1) Invest in senior management effectiveness; 2) Set up feeder roles and successor pools among the next tier of leaders under the top team; 3) Manage the technical ladder; 4) Identify and promote high-potential employees; and 5) Build quality cadres at the junior level.

The rate at which data and ideas are collected, viewed, and commented on is faster than ever due to the quick pace of technology innovation. With hundreds of platforms ranging from corporate open innovation to niche platforms, the value and success of individuals coming together to solve problems is well established. This article suggests five ways to leverage the principles of crowdsourcing to create a lasting impact within organizations: 1) From optimization to innovation: Multi-discipline ideation brings diverse audiences together to identify problems and opportunities and break down current models while creating new ones. 2) From customer service to customer experience: Co-creation is the act of building a product or service with customers and end users in an iterative manner (e.g. My Starbucks Idea). 3) From managing knowledge to collective intelligence: Distributed task management is the breaking up of large, complex tasks into micro tasks scattered across global populations. 4) From old money models to new money paradigms: Crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals to support an initiative by pooling funds together (e.g. Kickstarter). 5) From corporate responsibility to community impact: Civic community building relies on individuals within communities to raise awareness of community issues and projects to address them, with the objective of gathering support.

China, whose most active multinational companies are state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is actively investing in various sectors overseas. While the role of the Chinese government in the global expansion of Chinese multinationals is significant, government support should not be confused with firms’ own goals. In Africa, Chinese investments have been mostly in sectors such as infrastructure and energy, but investors have recently become interested in services and manufacturing. Chinese telecom firms in Africa enjoy advantages linked to China’s political economy agenda, while Chinese resource companies also have a large stake in Africa. Western commentators tend to speak of “the Chinese” as a single, resource-hungry entity and rarely mention that vast amounts of oil extracted by Chinese firms are sold on the international market. Although strong ties exist between the Chinese government and Chinese national oil companies, similar linkages have often existed in the West. This article argues that Chinese SOEs are hybrid organizations that receive exceptional assistance from the state but also function as private companies competing against global corporations and against other Chinese firms.

The largest predictor of new product success is a differentiated high-value product or service, while the best predictor of new product failure is inadequate market research and customer knowledge. With the growth of microprocessor-based products, a proliferation of usage and form factors has led to a shift between embedded devices, appliances, and platforms. Failure to navigate the generational shifts has been a major cause of failure or market share loss. Most businesses must either move from a proprietary embedded system to a more platform-oriented solution, or else package a platform-based solution in such a way as to make it more like an appliance. There are many choices on how to innovate, including product innovation, process innovation, customer innovation, and business model innovation. The digitization of content has had a profound impact on many businesses, and bundling or unbundling legal rights is the new frontier in product differentiation for content. Types of rights include level of quality, number of devices on which content can be used, and resale and inheritance rights. What constitutes a product versus a service will continue to evolve, as the migration occurs from product to service to solution to experience.

Are leaders born or made? The answer is both. Indeed, good leaders are the product of a never-ending process of skill and character development. This article reveals ten pathways for learning to lead: 1) performing: excelling in a role; 2) risking: taking chances to lead and learn; 3) stretching: going beyond one’s own comfort zone; 4) learning: reflecting on past events to discern lessons; 5) self-awareness: seeking to know one’s strengths and weaknesses; 6) trusting: relying on one’s abilities and those of others in order to build a reputation of trustworthiness; 7) adapting: acting appropriately in different situations; 8) mentoring: learning from other leaders; 9) observing: watching in order to gain a better understanding; and 10) integrating: seeing the “big picture.” <br><br>This article shows that many leaders lack an early desire to be glorified as a leader and that good leadership can be learned by anyone with basic intelligence and a strong commitment to ongoing development and collaboration. Making time for continual learning and avoiding arrogance or closed-mindedness is crucial. One tech-sector billionaire reveals how he frequently cleans the family lavatory after work, as a reminder that all contributions are valued. Ultimately, CEOs must create channels for feedback, and “command and control” should make way for sharing control over decision making.

Crowdsourcing can be defined as the application of social media to the process of open innovation. It leverages social media to enable brands, places, and entrepreneurs to engage and seek input from online communities who contribute powerful, creative ideas. Crowds should reflect a diversity of opinions, be independent, be geographically dispersed, and be able to aggregate private judgements into a collective decision. Culture can be an impediment to a firm’s adoption of crowdsourcing, if the firm is not open to receiving external input. Crowdsourcing also presents various risks, such as low participation due to a lack of awareness by an audience, controversy over intellectual property ownership, and confusion within a crowd about a task. Best practices in pursuing crowdsourcing include: 1) Ensure support: All ideas and contributions should be appreciated, and executive power for developing the contributions must exist. 2) Be clear with definitions: The company must understand how social media is being used internally. 3) Do demos and pilot: Try out different solutions and approaches and find what works best for an audience. 4) Think of what you want to ask: Explain the challenge in a way that resonates with the audience and elicits concrete contributions. 5) Give kudos: Reward the best contributors.

Corporate directors should look for three criteria in executives: competencies, commitment, and character. This article focuses on leadership character, the least understood of the three criteria. The authors met with over 300 business leaders on three continents, who identified character weaknesses or defects — including overconfidence, lack of transparency, and lack of accountability — as central to the Global Financial Crisis. The authors posit 11 dimensions of character — integrity, humility, courage, humanity, drive, accountability, temperance, justice, collaboration, transcendence, and judgment. They examine why character has not been studied extensively, given its relation to the crisis, and point to the lack of resources that the private and public sectors have spent on studying character (in contrast to competencies), as well as the common misperception of character as a “soft,” non-quantifiable construct. Character is revealed by how individuals behave in particular situations, and a full character assessment requires a deep and wide-ranging examination of a person’s life and work history over an extensive time period. Directors can influence character development in their organizations by discussing dimensions of character during appraisal processes, developing formal leadership profiles, and introducing character-focused discussion into their own board assessments.

With the leaders of global organizations increasingly unable to individually grasp the full complexity of firms’ worldwide operations, the task more than ever falls to groups of leaders at the top. These groups of leaders must be diverse in expertise and experiences and yet also synchronized in directing global organizations. These two imperatives often lead to conflict, but leaders can overcome difficulties by forming “leadership ensembles.” Effective leadership ensembles are characterized by foresight and preemptive change, agility rather than fixed governance roles, and the application of synthetic intelligence. Research on top executives has yielded four blueprints for decision making that successful ensembles follow. “Incubators” value a cohesive corporate culture and emphasize cultural fit with any new addition. “Diplomats” allow flexibility between local businesses and headquarters. “Engineers” try to optimize organizational structures and processes and tie their firms together, as well as foster a single culture. “Directors” want decisions to be made by those closest to the operations. Global leadership ensembles can improve their decision making significantly by understanding which blueprint leaders prefer; continually assessing how their preferred blueprint helps or hinders the organization’s goals for global expansion; and understanding the connection between the blueprint and how the ensemble operates.

Garry Halper Menswear Limited (GHM) is a medium-sized manufacturer of superior-quality men’s suits and jackets that up to now have largely been distributed in Canada. The firm has landed a very large order for men’s suits with Sutton’s in the United States. To meet the order, the firm has decided to import partly completed suits from China. The treasurer of GHM must assess the financing needs and related risks that result from this large increase in sales. At the same time, he believes that the company’s present bank is timid in its response to the firm’s needs, and he would like to consider another banking relationship.

Analytics is often seen as a threat by senior managers, yet good analytics can inform decision makers and lead to better decisions. Senior executives are likely to react negatively if their deeply held intuition is challenged by results derived from data that use analytics that they do not understand. However, a manager’s job is enriched when it changes from an operations-level, decision-making function to a role in which a complex system is supervised. While leadership and interpersonal skills remain crucial, executives must now possess the ability to critically assess and utilize the innovations emerging from data and advanced analytics. Big data can also lead to new business models, such as when retailers determine the precise needs of their customers and no longer need retail space. This article suggests ways that managers can mine big data to enable their firm to establish and sustain a competitive advantage. It illustrates how Dell analysts were able to define a lucrative product line of pre-configured computers and how IBM Research partnered with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank by market capitalization, to develop a highly successful branch network optimization system.

The tendency of firms during an economic slowdown to wait for the economy to improve and then plan to act often leads to stagnation. Lack of resources has been identified as a major challenge that firms face in implementing strategy. Lean innovation, despite a negative reputation, is an effective means of harnessing resources and eliminating excessive complexity in business. Lean innovation both frees up resources so that they can be applied to innovation projects, and creates a morale boost through eliminating waste. Ideas, the author suggests, are often found from suppliers, employees, and customers, not just R&D departments. Central to the lean innovation framework is the generation, refinement, and spread of ideas. In determining how to refine our ideas, it helps to frame the situation with a question: “What problem is being solved?” The importance of an innovation culture is illustrated by the example of Kodak, which lacked such a culture and went bankrupt after the spread of digital cameras. Indeed, incumbent firms are often unprepared to deal with the appearance of a new model and fail to adapt. Conversely, Netflix embodies the spirit of an innovation culture, as it was willing to introduce video on demand even if it meant eroding growing revenues from its traditional video rental delivery service.