The authors have conducted a two-year study of how new CEOs in large organizations gain access to seasoned counsel and feedback. Although these leaders have usually experienced mentoring earlier in their careers, arrival at the top suddenly narrows the available and appropriate options. To keep raising their game--and having their thinking usefully challenged--CEOs need wise mentoring. They're finding it, the authors learned, by turning to high-profile veteran leaders from outside their companies. But these arrangements have some tricky aspects: Special considerations must go into matching mentor and mentee, structuring their sessions to deliver the intended benefits, and prioritizing the process so that it isn't crowded out by other demands. Total confidentiality is an absolute necessity--as are regular meetings--and storytelling is the mode of knowledge sharing both parties usually prefer. "Most interesting to us," the authors write, "was the psychological boost that mentors' war stories seemed to give new CEOs."
Serial entrepreneur Vinesh Juglal wondered what it would be like to run Durban Computer College (DCC), the institution he had just bought. The education market in Africa was growing by leaps and bounds, and the ever-opportunistic Vinesh knew that buying a successful training enterprise could help him make the most of this market. On the other hand, Vinesh was well aware that in order to grow the institution he would need another source of financing, since his current lines were tied up in his real estate and supermarket businesses. Infrastructure was not an issue, since Vinesh had most of the fixed assets he needed to grow DCC Campus. Attracting more students would happen either by lowering fees or by offering financial aid. Vinesh had heard of many sponsoring bodies, including government programs, set up for this purpose. But these sponsors tended to give grants only to non-profit entities. What would be the best way to grow this "business"-if it could be called a business in the first place? Should he target the same return on investment as in his other businesses? More broadly, could he be successful using his previous, purely commercial approach? Learning objectives: To experience, almost first-hand, the rapidly changing business environment in South Africa in the 1985-2010 period, through the entrepreneurial adventures of Vinesh Juglal who builds a series of enterprisees across several industries. To consider the social role of business in the context of a developing country.
Kerstin Berger observes her new colleague Tina Orton gradually slide into complete dysfunction and burnout. Orton, just hired, is given very little guidance or support in a "set up to fail" job situation. In addition she is going through tremendous personal change. With a near-impossible project, a hands-off boss, and a new culture and language (she has just moved to Switzerland to be with her new husband on an expatriate assignment), Orton finds herself in an untenable situation. She asks for help but does not get it; instead she resorts to pathological overworking in an attempt at control-an attempt that does not work and that leaves her completely burned out. When one morning Orton cleans out her office, leaves her badge on her desk, and disappears, Berger is left to pick up the pieces of her project one month before launch. Learning objectives: To consider how it happens that accomplished professionals sometimes find themselves in impossible situations. To understand the nature of burnout and the factors behind it. To identify best (and worst) practices for hiring and "on-boarding" new professionals in IT and other staff functions. To think about our own biases about what constitutes success and failure, and to what extent situations dominate individuals in determining outcomes (fundamental attribution error).
Over the past decade, 360-degree feedback has revolutionized performance management. But one of its components--peer appraisal--consistently stymies executives and can exacerbate bureaucracy, heighten political tensions, and consume lots of time. For ten years, Maury Peiperl has studied 360-degree feedback and has asked: under what circumstances does peer appraisal improve performance? Why does peer appraisal sometimes work well and sometimes fail? And how can executives make these programs less anxiety provoking for participants and more productive for organizations? Peiperl discusses four paradoxes inherent to peer appraisal: 1) In the Paradox of Roles, colleagues juggle being both peer and judge. 2) The Paradox of Group Performance navigates between assessing individual feedback and the reality that much of today's work is done by groups. 3) The Measurement Paradox arises because simple, straightforward rating systems would seem to generate the most useful appraisals--but they don't. 4) During evaluations, most people focus almost exclusively on reward outcomes and ignore the constructive feedback generated by peer appraisal. Ironically, it is precisely this overlooked feedback that helps improve performance--thus, the Paradox of Rewards. These paradoxes do not have neat solutions, but managers who understand them can better use peer appraisal to improve their organizations.
The new general manager of Warner Cable's Medford, Massachusetts complex faces a number of turnaround challenges in 1985, including service deficiencies, customer complaints, high turnover, and low employee morale. By 1988 he has turned the situation around, but some employees and superiors question his turnaround style. Their concerns have broad implications for career systems at Warner. Teaching objectives include the understanding of human resource management tradeoffs in a turnaround situation, and the appropriateness of individual management styles over time as a company improves its productivity and communications.
The new general manager of Warner Cable's Medford, Massachusetts complex faces a number of turnaround challenges in 1985, including service deficiencies, customer complaints, high turnover, and low employee morale. By 1988 he has turned the situation around, but some employees and superiors question his turnaround style. Their concerns have broad implications for career systems at Warner. Teaching objectives include the understanding of human resource management tradeoffs in a turnaround situation, and the appropriateness of individual management styles over time as a company improves its productivity and communications.