In this article, the Dean of Western University’s Ivey Business School offers reflections on what business leaders should do as AI embeds itself in our day-to-day working lives. This article offers timeless advice because it is about how businesses should adapt in the face of technological change. Externally, leaders have a strategic imperative to create and maintain a distinctive value proposition in the face of strong AI-enabled forces for convergence. Internally, leaders have a moral imperative to ensure that workers continue to have worthwhile, meaningful jobs in an increasingly algorithm-controlled working environment. To ensure their organizations remain competitive, leaders need imagination, unreasonableness (the capacity to believe they are right and everyone else is wrong), and imperfection (i.e., authenticity). It is essential for leaders to ensure humanity remains in the workplace and, based on self-determination theory, this article suggests that autonomy, belonging, and competence should be emphasized. The AI revolution poses a possible schism between consciousness and intelligence, which creates risks for society in terms of inequality and a loss of social cohesion. As this article argues, leaders have the agency and responsibility to prevent this from happening within their organizations. Their job is to recouple consciousness and intelligence, ensure there is a human quality to their products and services, and safeguard the features of work that make it worth doing.
Since 2022, the Teaching Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Professional Development Workshop at the Academy of Management Conference has explored innovative approaches to DEIB instruction while offering educators support and community. This article offers highlights from the teaching demos (featuring in-person exercises) and Q&A panel at the August 2024 workshop. In the first demo, the instructor led participants through a gamified learning exercise called “The Quiz Game.” Designed to demonstrate the dynamics of privilege and disadvantage, participants were separated into three groups that were given different sets of rules. In a demo of the second game—“Family Face-Off”—two teams guessed the answers to survey questions posed to 100 individuals. This game illustrates how “meta-stereotypes”—one’s belief about how others perceive their group—can negatively impact a person’s identity, school and workplace performance, and interpersonal relationships. In the teaching panel Q&A, Dr. Adam Waytz recommended bringing up divisive current events in order to show nimbleness and authenticity. When asked about managing disagreements between students, Dr. Erika V. Hall emphasized the importance of laying ground rules in the classroom. In the case of students struggling to understand the other side’s position, she recommended bringing the discussion back to specifics of the curriculum and data-backed material. Finally, in terms of teaching heavy topics or facilitating difficult conversations, Dr. Waytz cautioned against catering excessively to critics in the room who might never be satisfied.
American couples spend over US$30 billion a year on couples therapy. But when co-founders of companies experience relational challenges, they do not take similar action. This article explores the application of couples therapy—enriched by insights from adult attachment theory—to address the relational challenges experienced by co-founders. It contends that by integrating couples therapy and attachment-informed strategies into business practices, co-founders can navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship with resilience and cohesion, which will ultimately contribute to the long-term sustainability of their ventures. Attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized—shape individuals’ expectations, behaviours, patterns, and responses in close relationships, which are mirrored in one’s workplace dynamics. By providing a supportive environment, couples therapy interventions can help co-founders cultivate greater self-awareness, empathy, and emotional intelligence. By aligning business objectives with relational needs, therapy sessions empower co-founders to leverage their attachment strengths and navigate challenges with resilience and confidence. Moreover, attachment-informed strategies can help guide leadership practices, decision-making processes, and conflict resolution mechanisms within a business partnership. By fostering a culture of collaboration, empathy, and mutual respect, therapy sessions contribute to the long-term sustainability of the venture. Reflective listening, managing expectations, and allocating time for the relationship—when paired with couples therapy—represent effective strategies in creating healthy co-founder relationships.
AI’s rapid advancements have showcased capabilities that seem almost human-like—sometimes even superhuman. For many, this triggers feelings of inadequacy along with the desire to give up. But surrendering is neither necessary nor productive. The reality of our relationship with AI is more nuanced than a simple battle of human versus machine. It requires thoughtful reflection and a reframing of how we approach our roles and strengths in an AI-driven world. This article contains a three-step framework that offers a possible way to embrace AI in the workplace: 1) start by discovering your strengths so you can use AI to augment them, not replace them; 2) treat AI as an ally; and 3) experiment with different tools. Adapting to the AI age is about embracing a growth mindset, staying curious, and continuously seeking to understand the evolving technology landscape. Organizations play a crucial role in cultivating this mindset. This involves not just providing access to training programs but also fostering a culture where curiosity and innovation are encouraged. Historically, productivity has been the dominant metric of success with the use of technology in the workplace. However, as machines excel at automating repetitive tasks, our value will increasingly be defined by qualities that AI cannot easily replicate, such as empathy, ethical judgment, creativity, and the ability to inspire and lead.
Canada and the United States have long coexisted as respectful neighbours who have agreed to disagree on many things while benefiting from the integration of our economies and fighting side by side to defend common values. But since winning the recent U.S. election, Donald Trump has been threatening to put a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods and suggesting he might deploy economic warfare to coerce Canada into becoming America’s 51st state. Although sweeping trade threats often give way to more limited measures, even a blanket tariff of 10 per cent could trigger a Canadian GDP contraction of 2.4 per cent, while putting 500,000 jobs at risk. Nobody knows what to expect in the days ahead and Canada needs to stop publicly issuing threats of our own until the lay of the land becomes clear. Publicly disagreeing over what Canada should do in a trade war before it even starts only makes us look weak. Pointing out America’s flaws while trying to avoid anti-Canadian policies is equally counterproductive. Canadians need to stop thinking we can sell a win–win solution directly to Trump. Let’s focus on collectively and calmly educating Americans on how trade with Canada benefits them. This can be done in partnership with U.S. interests that would be hurt in a trade war. We should also figure out how to increase internal trade while diversifying our economy and reducing our reliance on the U.S. market. Finally, we should consider giving Trump the appearance of a win by aggressively moving to meet our NATO commitments.
In this installment of Organizational Performance, we draw attention to two types of shareholders that tend to push executive decision-making in different directions. Quality shareholders (QSs) invest in a small number of companies and hold their shares over time. QSs offer patient capital that allows executives to focus on building and sustaining competitive advantages. Transient institutional investors (TIIs) hold dispersed shareholdings across a wide array of companies and frequently trade in and out of any given stock. TIIs impose pressure on quarterly earnings reports that induce managerial myopia and inhibit strategic thinking. We consider the influence of these investors on how many consumers are harmed before a defective product is pulled from the market. The good news is that for every 1% increase in QS shareholding, prerecall consumer harm decreases by 2%. Unfortunately, for the same amount of increase in TII shareholding, prerecall consumer harm increases by 6%-a frightening prospect. The case of product recalls draws the difference between QSs and TIIs into stark contrast. In response, we offer practical recommendations to assist managers in navigating these two types of powerful institutional investors.
With the enactment of the long-awaited U.S. security-based crowdfunding regulations in May 2016, early-stage private companies can utilize regulatory crowdfunding to raise funds on digital platforms via multiple nonaccredited investors. To protect such small microinvestors and maintain market efficiency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires extensive disclosure information in filings. However, with many ventures being new, small, or lacking in experience, there has been little practical guidance on best practices for navigating such disclosures-particularly to enhance funding prospects. We aim to address this gap by focusing on two crucial aspects of disclosures: financial reporting and the disclosure narrative. We draw on extant research in the field and outline the best disclosure practices for potential regulatory crowdfunding issuers based on signaling theory and institutional theory. Our recommendations offer a simple but practical guide to SEC financial reporting and disclosures for successful regulatory crowdfunding.
Earth4All, an international collective of economic thinkers, scientists, and environmental advocates, has posited that the current dominant economic model and its focus on gross domestic product growth is destabilizing our societies and planet. Earth4All describes two possible scenarios the world is heading towards as “Too Little Too Late” and “Giant Leap.” The former depicts a world where societies continue to fail to counter economic, political, and social polarization, food and energy insecurity, climate change, and ecological collapse. The Giant Leap scenario envisions a fundamental reconfiguration of global economic, energy, power, and food systems. But why does “Too Little Too Late” behaviour continue? According to Earth4All, the prerequisite internal dimension of systemic change has been underestimated or ignored by business leaders. Earth4All proposes that leaders move away from a short-term method of dealing with challenges; see humanity as part of nature and recognize interconnectedness; and embrace the need for five turnarounds related to poverty, inequality, gender equity, the food system, and the energy system. The article concludes with various techniques to help individuals and teams develop their inner dimension, including using embodied/mindfulness techniques; redesigning meeting spaces to encourage people to move around; turning off all phones/devices during meetings; and using the UN Inner Development Goals in 360 evaluations and reward and recognition initiatives.
When it comes to mitigating the impact of climate change, time is running out for many Indigenous Peoples, whose land plays host to about 80 per cent of global biodiversity. But as Indigenous Peoples fight for climate justice, they face significant social and economic issues that intensify their climate-related problems, including limited representation, restricted education access, inadequate financial services, and conflicts stemming from unregistered ancestral lands and territories. This article proposes a new framework for sustainability that aims to bring the planet’s stakeholders together by aligning corporate social responsibility practices with climate justice requirements for Indigenous Peoples. The authors’ Regenerative Business Framework for Indigenous Peoples’ Climate Justice was developed to provide a strategic approach to achieving climate justice through a balancing of the needs of “planet, people and prosperity” within a regenerative and distributive economic model. The framework is based on an acknowledgment of the rights of Indigenous Peoples along with the value of their wisdom as champions of biodiversity stewardship. It lays the foundation for sustainable capitalism by offering a systematic approach to climate justice that empowers Indigenous populations as agents of businesses seeking the preservation of assets and resources that support a wide range of industries. In the authors’ framework, businesses strive to effectively operate through a cycle of acknowledgement, action, and accountability/transparency in their interactions with Indigenous Peoples.
Resilience is the key to driving a company’s long-term profitable growth, according to new research at Accenture that was designed to measure the connection between corporate resilience and the ability to create value. After analyzing the performance of 1,615 of the world’s largest publicly traded companies across 18 industries with their Resilience Index, the authors found that only 52 per cent of high-performing companies—those with above-peer-set revenue growth and profitability—outpaced their peers continuously through the business cycle running from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2023. The authors’ research showed that companies need a holistic vision and investment strategy for resilience, which they define as the capability to cope with and capitalize on fast-changing markets. They found evidence that a combination of financial and non-financial strengths captured in their Resilience Index—such as a company’s ability to hire talent and invest in technological innovations—drive and predict long-term high performance. Companies with the highest ratings across all the Resilience Index’s dimensions had the strongest performance. In addition, the authors discovered that companies that build a resilience-focused culture while investing in multiple resilience-enhancing capabilities and developing the talent needed to unlock the potential of new technologies have faster-growing revenue and profit margins over the long term.
Generative AI is promising to be the most disruptive technology since the internet. According to Accenture, 44 per cent of working hours in the United States fall within the scope of automation or augmentation with this technology. However, security is a major consideration impacting the adoption or implementation of generative AI, and CEOs are rightly concerned. While generative AI is democratizing access and driving productivity, it is also leading to insecure deployments, security breaches, and AI-powered threats such as deepfakes. To fully realize competitive gains, businesses must elevate their cybersecurity strategies to address gaps and vulnerabilities—both within and outside their organizations. As generative AI intensifies the competition for labour productivity, it is also opening new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by bad actors, including insecure deployment of generative AI, excessive accessibility, and lax experimentation. Companies can employ the following strategies to bolster their cyber-resilience: 1) modernize their security setup at the same pace as business innovation; 2) heighten employees’ awareness of the potential risks associated with generative AI; and 3) innovate from a trusted foundation by securing the underlying cloud foundation and implementing strict controls.
In the dynamic landscape of continuous strategic and organizational transformation, execution has become increasingly intricate, requiring everything from real-time monitoring to crisis management and decision support. Unfortunately, the most common solution for delivering on key initiatives—a program management office (PMO)—remains static and staid, focused on reporting over dialogue and on process over collaboration. At the heart of today’s successful transformation journey lies the next frontier of the PMO—the transformation office with a “mission control” function. As a nerve centre, it drives execution, ensures alignment and coordination across initiative workstreams, and forestalls risks to delivering results. The objective of the transformation office is to maximize the impact of strategic projects and initiatives through an integrated approach to project management. To accomplish this, it plays the following five roles: 1) project management steward (ensures that project management practices are not only standardized but also optimized for better outcomes); 2) initiative effectiveness situation room (tracks progress, identifies bottlenecks, and swiftly responds to changes); 3) program and portfolio decision support (monitors initiatives’ health and adjusts the trajectory if necessary); 4) transformation-level change management and communications hub (facilitates consistent messaging, aligns various change efforts, and ensures that communication resonates with the transformation’s vision); and 5) executive steering navigator (highlights critical decisions and focal points for executive leadership).
Historically, organizations have viewed exploration and exploitation as two distinct paths to innovation. But in our digital-driven era, this view is outdated. They describe recent research showing that some companies are working together to invent innovations further from the customer and compete on activities closer to the customer. They call the amalgamation of these two approaches coopetition. In this article they show that to succeed in the digital era, both digital and legacy incumbents must practice 'innovation ambidexterity,' refining existing competencies while exploring new avenues. By embedding coopetition into their DNA, companies can leverage both digital technologies and strategic partnerships.
Inclusive leadership is at the heart of what former AT&T CEO Anne Chow calls 'leading bigger.' While a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is important, she argues that it is not enough. Inclusion, as she defines it, is not just about people. It can also relate to the work itself-through, for instance, taking in larger datasets and more viewpoints for better decision-making. And it can encompass the workplace, more agilely addressing where, when and how we work to support the needs of the business and its people in any given moment. In this article she provides a playbook for 'leading bigger'-and enabling your organization to thrive.
Too often, efforts to innovate fall short within organizations. The good news is that, whether the focus is on new products, services, processes or business models, Generative AI (GenAI) can enhance and challenge the work of teams across all phases of the innovation cycle. GenAI's most obvious contribution thus far has been in idea generation and validation-the divergence and convergence phases of innovation. Yet the authors show that it can play an even more important role in helping leaders confront and update the strategic assumptions at the foundation of their strategies-what they call the 'doubt phase' of the cycle. They show that GenAI's role in innovation is not to take humans out of the creative process, just to make them better at it by pointing out old assumptions that box them in and stymie the quest for true innovation.
There is one thing that virtually every organization-whether it's a bank, a tech start-up or a hospital-has in common: a desire to reach its full innovative potential. The question is, how is this achieved? In this article-an excerpt from his book, The Management of Innovation-the author shares eight of the most important elements and principles for leaders to consider when aiming to optimize innovation for their organization. The first four relate to the use of intellectual property (IP) for effective management of the technologies developed by an organization; while the other four focus on the drivers of innovation both inside and outside of a firm.
Day after day, we observe people doing the same things in the same ways. As a result, we expect people to wear shoes on their feet and gloves on their hands; to eat ice cream with a spoon, not a fork; and to sit at the front when they drive and the back when they don't. When we observe things over and over, our mind stops register¬ing the action and responding. There is no 'surprise' signal to make us think, 'Hey, maybe we could do things differently?' The author argues that even minor changes have the power to trigger 'dishabituation' by signaling that a new situation needs to be navigated. As a result, people are more likely to rethink the status quo. He provides insights for increasing creative thinking in organizations by inducing small changes to routines and environments.
The boards of too many publicly traded companies are downright timid when considering matters involving science and technology. More often than not, they focus on security and digitization-a defensive posture that fails to consider the bigger opportunities emerging from new materials, space science, and a better understanding of the genome-to name just a few areas of opportunity. It's easy to be lulled into thinking that science does not matter to a nontech company. But that distinction isn't quite so meaningful when it comes to capitalizing on the opportunities from technological change that is now ubiquitous, rapid, turbulent, and often emanating from increasingly unlikely corners. The authors have observed firsthand an effective way to address this gap: the board technology committee. Drawing on the achievements of tech committees at AES, Johnson & Johnson, and Altria (companies for which the authors are or have been directors), they describe how these entities can advance the interests of organizations and offer advice on how to set one up.