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Most companies assume that the easiest way to grow is by investing overseas and that the developing world offers the best opportunities for boosting revenues and profits today. However, success abroad varies widely, and research shows that it's often tough to increase profits by investing abroad. A new study of the grocery retail industry reveals that with a few exceptions globalization's benefits have not accrued to retailers. Local retailers dominate most countries, and international players are absent from the largest retail markets. Moreover, every retailer that has ventured overseas has failed as often as it has succeeded. On average, the extent of internationalization doesn't have a significant effect on either retailers' revenue growth rates or profit margins. Rather, it's the home market's growth that is the primary driver of profit margins and sales growth. A few retailers have succeeded in going global by developing strategies that apply four retail-specific rules for globalization. Rule 1: The home market is the linchpin. Retailers can generate the resources they need to go global by applying innovative growth strategies at home. Rule 2: Always bring something new to market. Without an element of novelty, it will be difficult for retailers to overtake entrenched rivals. Rule 3: Differentiation is more important than synergies. Leveraging synergies globally and allowing each country unit to adjust to local needs is a critical balancing act. Rule 4: Timing is critical. Retailers would do well to stop planting flags and focus instead on a limited set of opportunities where they can establish operations of scale.

If senior executives are feeling ever more pressed for time, why would they add more to their plates? It might sound counterintuitive, but research by Booz & Company's Gary L. Neilson and Harvard Business School professor Julie Wulf shows that over the past 20 years the CEO's average span of control, measured by the number of direct reports, has doubled. It stands at almost 10 today. This gives fresh relevance to a perennial question for senior leaders: Just how much should they take on? The authors suggest five areas to consider: Where are you in the senior executive life cycle? How much cross-organization collaboration is required? How much time do you spend on activities outside your direct span of control? What's the scope of your role? What's the best mix of roles for your team? A diagnostic tool provides guidance for leaders considering these questions and can help them estimate their optimal span of control. The issues explored are ones many senior executives--not just CEOs--should revisit throughout their careers. The best leaders, the authors show, stay mindful of the evolving demands of their job and continually tweak their team as they go.

Reverse innovation-developing ideas in an emerging market and coaxing them to flow uphill to Western markets-poses immense challenges, because it requires a company to overcome the institutionalized thinking that guides its actions. That's why the experience of the automobile-infotainment division of Harman International is so impressive. The U.S.-based business, known for ultrasophisticated dashboard audiovisual systems designed by German engineers, developed a radically simpler and cheaper way of creating products in emerging markets and then applied what it had learned in the process to its product-­development centers in the West. Harman did this using a two-part approach: radical change from below combined with astute leadership from above. A small team based in India and China set audacious goals, created a new organizational structure, and adopted new design methods, while the chief executive, Dinesh C. Paliwal, rebranded the company's future, shifted the corporate center of gravity to emerging markets, made sure that legacy units continued to thrive, and averted conflict between old and new.

Lessons taught and learned in the challenging, unpredictable environment of a wilderness expedition have direct applications to today's business world. That's according to two directors at the National Outdoor Leadership School, who in this article share five principles for expedition--and career--success. (1) Practice leadership. The fundamental philosophy of NOLS is that leadership can be learned--even by those who don't think they have a natural ability to lead. You just need to practice making decisions, then reflecting on and learning from the outcomes. (2) Lead from everywhere. In an expedition group, or in an organization, you can play four roles, often simultaneously: designated leader, active follower, peer leader, and self-leader. Effective teamwork rests on knowing how and when to step into each role. (3) Behave well. Leadership means getting along in a diverse group, cooperating with teammates, effectively resolving conflict, and keeping yourself and others motivated. (4) Keep calm. On expeditions and in business, people often end up scrapping not only Plan A but also Plan B. Leadership involves planning for things you can control, letting go of things you can't, expecting the unexpected, and maintaining composure when unforeseen circumstances arise. (5) Disconnect to connect. The fast-paced, high-tech world of work wreaks havoc on leaders' ability to engage in the careful, strategic thinking required of them. It's important to disconnect from 21st-century distractions and to connect with nature once in a while.

What compels a famous Chinese artist to cross disciplines, work in collaboration, and champion human rights.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Companies that are able to radically change their entrenched ways of doing things and then reclaim leading positions in their industries are the exception rather than the rule. Even less common are companies able to anticipate a new set of requirements and mobilize the internal and external resources necessary to meet them. Few companies make the transformation from their old model to a new one willingly. Typically, they begin to search for a new way forward only when they are pushed. This raises two important questions for corporate managers: (1) Is decline inevitable? (2) Do companies really need a financial downturn to galvanize change, or can they adopt new ways of doing things when not under pressure? Management theorists have observed that decline, while perhaps not inevitable, is at least very likely after a period of time. For this reason, the authors argue, it's important for organizations to develop new dynamic capabilities deliberately rather than relying entirely on their historic capabilities. In their attempt to understand what makes for successful organizational transformations, the authors studied 215 of the United Kingdom's largest public companies. The article focuses on three companies that transformed themselves-Cadbury Schweppes in packaged goods, Tesco in grocery retail and Smith & Nephew in medical devices. It compares them with three other companies from similar industries that were also successful but hadn't been required to make a dramatic shift. The authors found that the companies that transformed themselves had three fundamental advantages over their peers. First, they were able to build alternative coalitions with management. Second, they were able to create a tradition of constructively challenging business as usual. And third, they were able to exploit "happy accidents"to make strategic changes. Together these advantages helped them establish a virtuous cycle of strategic transformation.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Companies, the authors argue, are increasingly turning toward business model innovation as an alternative or complement to product or process innovation. Drawing on extensive research they conducted over the course of the last decade, the authors define a company's business model as a system of interconnected and interdependent activities that determines the way the company "does business"with its customers, partners and vendors. In other words, a business model is a bundle of specific activities -an activity system -conducted to satisfy the perceived needs of the market, along with the specification of which parties (a company or its partners) conduct which activities, and how these activities are linked to each other. Business model innovation can occur in a number of ways: (1) by adding novel activities, for example, through forward or backward integration, (2) by linking activities in novel ways, or (3) by changing one or more parties that perform any of the activities. Changes to business model design can be subtle, the authors note; even when they might not have the potential to disrupt an industry, they can still yield important benefits to the innovator. The authors offer a number of examples of business model innovation and pose six questions for executives to consider when thinking about business model innovation: 1. What perceived needs can be satisfied through the new model design? 2. What novel activities are needed to satisfy these perceived needs? 3. How could the required activities be linked to each other in novel ways? 4. Who should perform each of the activities that are part of the business model? 5. How is value created through the novel business model for each of the participants? 6. What revenue model fits with the company's business model to appropriate part of the total value it helps create?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Traits that benefit an executive in one position often do not work well in another position. Moving into new roles or environments, executives may need to play up or rein in different facets of their personalities. Strengths can become weaknesses. Psychologists have identified countless traits distinguishing us from one another. But recent research has converged toward five broad dimensions, each comprising a cluster of traits that account for the majority of the differences among individual personalities. These dimensions have been dubbed the Big Five: need for stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Drawing on their extensive coaching work with senior executives, the authors identify common leadership pitfalls associated with high and low scores on each of the Big Five personality dimensions, as well as potential solutions. For example, executives who tend to dominate group settings -demonstrating high levels of extraversion -can practice the "four-sentence"rule: limiting whatever they have to say to four sentences. Executives who are too blunt or aggressive -demonstrating low levels of agreeableness -can practice the art of cushioning their criticisms with phrases such as "let me play devil's advocate for a moment"or "if I put on my critic's hat." Self-awareness, the authors conclude, is the inevitable starting point for managing one's psychological preferences. Without it, executives will struggle to evolve or find coping strategies. With it, leaders can learn where their natural inclinations lie -and they can boost or compensate for those inclinations, depending on the circumstances. The idea is not to undergo a personality change. It is to be yourself, with more skill.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

Integrative thinkers will not accept 'either/or' solutions. In general terms, Integrative Thinking means 'constructively using the tension between opposing models to generate a creative resolution in the form of a new model which contains elements of the existing models, but is superior to each'. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all operation. In this article, which includes examples from Walmart and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the pioneers of Integrative Thinking describe three types of 'integrations' that can lead to creative resolutions to problems.

Designing objects is pretty straight forward; but as the world's problems become more complex, the traditional design process is being challenged. Many of the products and services created today are more like complex systems than simple objects; and as systems evolve, so must systems design knowledge. The author, CEO of IDEO, one of the world's most renowned design firms, describes the shift away from creating 'blueprints' to solve problems, towards an acceptance of the evolutionary nature of today's problems. He describes six characteristics of this emerging environment, which include 'accepting the fact that design is never done.'

The Occupy movement that targeted Wall Street, Bay Street and other financial centers in the fall of 2011 was indicative of how a growing percentage of the population feels about business. And there's no end in sight, says the author, who has taught at leading business schools for her entire career: it seems like every time you turn on the news, there's a new investing or management scandal. Many people lay the blame for these kinds of failures at the feet of MBAs and the business schools that train them - and for good reason, she says. She presents three critical steps that business schools must take in order to transform their culture, and in doing so, transform the culture of business.

While the global issues of our time each present unique challenges, they have one thing in common: they require mass participation. Finding solutions to climate change, demographic shifts, the prevention and management of chronic disease, the provision of safe water supplies and food security -- to name but a few -- requires the pooling of diverse types of knowledge and resources and harnessing the motivation of billions of individuals and their communities. The author describes the emergence of 'participatory systems', which combine different types of knowledge and resources to provide a service or social solution. With their ability to attract mass enthusiasm and harness mass collaboration at low cost, she says, their time is now.

When faced with a problem to solve, most people jump immediately to focusing on solutions, devoting little time to why the problem exists in the first place. This is just one of the 'traps' of traditional thinking that the author describes. Another is pattern recognition, which can lead us to jump to conclusions much too soon. Regardless of the work we do, we must constantly fight the urge to act immediately and 'fill in the blanks' and instead, take the time to observe first and design second. In today's world, this will become increasingly important, he says, for the simple reason that the challenges we face are becoming more complex by the day.

Anyone who keeps up with today's news knows that examples of governance failures abound and that Enron was just the tip of the iceberg. The fact is, the responsibilities of a modern Board Chair have evolved significantly in the past decade, and so too must the individuals who hold the post. The author, a long-time director and governance expert, advises Chairs to pay attention to the four 'Ts': mobilizing Talent, building Trust, managing Tensions and investing Time. He provides several tools for achieving each, and concludes that it is high time for our 'organizational conductors' to take control of unscripted virtuoso players and lead their orchestras to more harmonious outcomes.

No man is an island, and neither is an organization. GE is just one of the leading firms that has embraced the fact that the challenges it faces -- in areas from healthcare to energy to transportation -- are too 'wicked' to be solved by GE alone. In an interconnected world, the key to solving complex problems lies in figuring out when-and whom-to ask for help. The authors describe six skills of 'open innovation' that enable you to add fresh insights, sharp perspectives and different capabilities to your existing processes and infrastructure, and drive innovation.

While problems of all shapes and sizes can benefit from creativity, the most complex of problems require solutions that are not only creative but span boundaries and organizations. The author has witnessed first-hand in his work at frog, where traditional organizations such as the State Department have embarked on initiatives to integrate design thinking into their programming. However, he has identified four obstacles that often come between creative approaches and large-scale implementations. He describes each obstacle and provides recommendations for moving beyond them. In the end, he says, design but one ingredient - albeit an important one -- in an overall strategy.