"Power is misunderstood." Thus begins the new book from management professors Tiziana Casciaro (Rotman School of Management) and Julie Battilana (Harvard). In this interview, co-author Casciaro shares insights from the book, including the fact that the most effective changemakers in an organization are not necessarily the people at the top; and that power is not intrinsically good or bad. She provides a four-element definition of power and shares key principles of the authors' framework for shifting the balance of power-a critical undertaking in a world beset by inequality. Armed with this understanding of how power works, she promises that we have a chance to live on this planet in harmony.
Although power is essential to taking charge and driving change, it makes leaders vulnerable to two traps that can not only erode their own effectiveness but also undermine their team's. Hubris--the excessive pride and self-confidence that can come with power--causes people to greatly overestimate their own abilities, while self-focus makes them less attentive to subordinates, diminishing their ability to lead successfully. The authors offer strategies for recognizing and avoiding these pitfalls. They outline how to cultivate humility and empathy as antidotes to hubris and self-focus, through actions such as establishing channels for honest input, creating visible reminders that success is fleeting, immersing oneself in other people's jobs and experiences, and embedding interdependence in organizational systems. A balanced relationship with power can seldom be developed overnight, but in time, leaders who follow this advice will boost their own effectiveness and facilitate exceptional performance from their teams.
Today the most promising innovation and business opportunities require collaboration among functions, offices, and organizations. To realize them, companies must break down silos and get people working together across boundaries. But that's a challenge for many leaders. Employees naturally default to focusing on vertical relationships, and formal restructuring is costly, confusing, and slow. What, then, is the solution? Engaging in four activities that promote horizontal teamwork: (1) developing cultural brokers, or employees who excel at connecting across divides; (2) encouraging people to ask questions in an open-ended, unbiased way that genuinely explores others' thinking; (3) getting people to actively take other points of view; and (4) broadening employees' vision to include more-distant networks. By supporting these activities, leaders can help employees connect with new pools of expertise and learn from and relate to people who think very differently from them. And when that happens, interface collaboration will become second nature.
"I hate networking." It's a familiar refrain. But in today's world, networking is a necessity-and fortunately, an aversion to it can be overcome. Drawing on laboratory experiments and on studies at a large law firm, the authors have identified four strategies that can help people become more excited about and effective at building relationships: Focus on learning. Adopt a "promotion mindset" and concentrate on the positives, and you're more likely to perceive networking as an opportunity for discovery rather than a chore. Identify common interests. Consider how your goals align with those of people you meet, and networking will feel more authentic. Think broadly about what you can give. Remember that you have something valuable to offer, whether it's knowledge, gratitude, or recognition. Find a higher purpose. Frame your networking in terms of a larger goal-the collective benefits for your company, say-and the activity will feel more authentic and will lead to connections that bear fruit for everyone.
A renowned Harvard Business School professor discusses her research findings around 'Collective Genius'. After spending hundreds of hours watching the world's most innovative leaders work at places like Google, Pixar and Pfizer, she found that leading innovation is really about one thing: creating a context in which others are both willing and able to do the hard work of innovation. Enabling innovation, she found, involves building your organization's capacity for three things: collaboration, discovery-driven learning, and integrative decision making. Together, these elements constitute Collective Genius-and every employee has a slice of genius to contribute. In the end, she shows that you can't plan for innovation or tell people to innovate; but you can organize for it.
Change is hard, especially in a large organization. Yet some leaders succeed--often spectacularly--at transforming their workplaces. What makes them able to exert this sort of influence when the vast majority can't? The authors tracked 68 change initiatives in the UK's National Health Service, an organization whose size, complexity, and tradition can make reform difficult. They discovered several predictors of change agents' success--all of which emphasize the importance of networks of personal relationships: Change agents who were central in the organization's informal network had a clear advantage, regardless of their position in the formal hierarchy. People who bridged disconnected groups or individuals were more effective at implementing dramatic reforms. The resisters in their networks did not necessarily know one another and so were unlikely to form a coalition. Change agents with cohesive networks, in which all individuals were connected, were better at instituting minor changes. Their contacts rallied around the initiative and helped convince others of its importance. Being close to people who were ambivalent about a change was always beneficial. In the end, fence-sitters were reluctant to disappoint a friend. But close relationships with resisters were a double-edged sword: Such ties helped push through minor initiatives but were a hindrance when attempting major change.
Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not? With commentaries by Mary B. Cranston, the firm senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Michael Hamilton, a partner at Ernst & Young.
Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not?
Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not? With commentaries by Mary B. Cranston, the firm senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Michael Hamilton, a partner at Ernst & Young.
Since being appointed CEO of Moët Hennessy España (MHE), the Spanish subsidiary of the wine & spirits business of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), the world's leading luxury products group, Ramiro Otaño had overseen a spectacularly successful run at the company by any financial measure. Despite the company's growth, some of the employees who had been at the company for years were complaining that the company had lost its "human touch" in the process of professionalizing and modernizing to capitalize on the fantastic market opportunities that had opened up in Spain. Some felt that the work was now too structured and interpersonal relationships too dry. Otaño acknowledged that the financial success had happened on the expense of the informal and relational atmosphere that used to characterize the company. But did it matter, Otaño wondered? How should he go forward?
Michelle Levene discovers that she is pregnant a few days before receiving an offer for her dream job. The new position would require Levene to travel extensively, something she would not be able to do towards the end of the pregnancy and while caring for a newborn. Levene has been with biotech leader Genzyme Corp. for two years and cannot imagine a better professional opportunity than the new position at this stage in her career. Should she accept the job, telling her new manager that she is pregnant? Should she accept the job but wait a few months to discuss the pregnancy--after all, this is her first baby and who knows what might happen? Or should she meet with the new manager and tell him that under the circumstances, she would expect him to rescind the verbal offer?
Explores the challenge of managing large-scale organizational change at Simmons, an old and established company that manufactures and distributes mattresses. The new CEO, Charlie Eitel, hired to turn the organization's performance around, considers whether to implement an untraditional training program that includes outdoor experiential team-building activities as a central element of his change strategy. Asks participants to consider the decision of investing in the expensive training program following the loss of the three largest customers--retailers that together had contributed a third of Simmons' revenues. One central theme is the role of leadership in engaging and motivating employees to implement changes that improve product quality and operational efficiency and cost.
When looking for help with a task at work, people turn to those best able to do the job. Right? Wrong. New research shows that work partners tend to be chosen not for ability but for likeability. Drawing from their study encompassing 10,000 work relationships in five organizations, the authors have classified work partners into four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight; the lovable star, who's both smart and likeable; and the incompetent jerk, who...well, that's self-explanatory. Of course, everybody wants to work with the lovable star, and nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk. More interesting is that people prefer the lovable fool over the competent jerk. That has big implications for every organization, as both of these types often represent missed opportunities. Lovable fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups that might not otherwise interact. But their networking skills are often developed at the expense of job performance, which can make these employees underappreciated and vulnerable to downsizing. To get the most out of them, managers need to protect them and put them in positions that don't waste their bridge-building talents. As for the competent jerks, many can be socialized through coaching or by being made accountable for bad behavior.