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Strategy

INSEAD Insights: March 2024 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on the gender gap in start-ups, conspiracy theories, stock price predictions, improving supply chain networks and more.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leaders Can Avoid the Hubris Trap

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Overcoming the hubris syndrome requires a dose of reality, humility and humour.

Leadership & Organisations

Winning the Game of Boardroom Chess

M. Jarrett, A. J. Yap, C. LeBaron

How subtle, seemingly innocuous actions can shift the balance of power in your favour.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Should Be a Team Sport

Graham Ward

Actions speak louder than titles and every voice holds the power to lead.

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD Insights: February 2024 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on time management, family business, herd behaviour, public-private collaborations and cyberloafing.

Leadership & Organisations

Business and Politics Should Never Mix – Or Should They?

M. Scholz, C. Smith

When companies have a responsibility to speak out on politics.

Leadership & Organisations

In Praise of Boredom

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Monotony can ignite creativity, giving rise to new adventures and fresh beginnings.

Leadership & Organisations

Let’s Get Specific About Kindness in Business

Nadav Klein

Being kind in business has its limits – here’s why you shouldn’t go overboard.

Strategy

Why Some CEOs Are More Likely to Downsize

Guoli Chen

A firm’s decision on whether to downsize when facing performance shortfalls may depend on the CEO’s internal attribution tendency.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Challenges When Companies Merge

Andy J. Yap

Lessons from an Indonesian telco merger success: When organisations merge, people must come together.

Career

Can You Bring Your Spirituality to Work?

C. Harbour, A. Tirard, N. Klein

Lessons from executives who integrated their spiritual beliefs into their leadership style.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leaders Can Effect Change by Changing Themselves

Narayan Pant

A four-step framework to help leaders look inwards to better lead organisational change.

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD Insights: January 2024 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on enhancing experiences, gender wage transparency, long-term planning, networks and the dangers of flattery.

Leadership & Organisations

Stop Asking Candidates for Their Last-Drawn Salary

Mark Mortensen

A holistic approach does more to ensure the right fit and boost employee well-being and retention.

Career

How To Align What You Say With What You Do

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Bridging the divide between best intentions and actual behaviour.

Leadership & Organisations

Three “Bad Boss” Habits to Avoid in 2024

Graham Ward

Resist the urge to emotionally detach, control outcomes or blindly comply.

Career

What 2023 Taught Us: The Rules Are Always Changing

INSEAD Knowledge

This year's top trending articles explore how we can keep pace with a world in flux.

Leadership & Organisations

X-Teams: Three Principles to Guide Today’s Leaders

Henrik Bresman

In a VUCA world that’s gone on steroids, mere internal alignment won’t cut it.

Economics & Finance

INSEAD Insights: December 2023 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on consumer confidence, preventing financial runs, competitor information, regulation and gender bias in the workplace.

Strategy

Why We Can Be Quicker to Judge Others Than We Think

N. Klein, R. E. Lim

People tend to violate the thresholds they set for evaluating others, which can have significant consequences for their reputation and relationships.

Career

Why Not Enough Women Are Senior Leaders

A. Roulet, A. Lawson

True parity in the workplace is still a distant goal. INSEAD faculty outline why women aren’t advancing and the role gender stereotypes play.

Strategy

How Overconfidence Affects CEOs’ Investment Decisions

Guoli Chen

In uncertain climates, overconfident CEOs tend to invest less in assets that allow a firm to maintain strategic flexibility compared to non-overconfident CEOs.

Leadership & Organisations

Braggy Bosses Can Boost Their Teams

K. Nault, A. Yap

We love bosses who brag about their accomplishments – and loathe colleagues who do the same.

Leadership & Organisations

OpenAI's Crisis Is Yet Another Wake-Up Call

T. Evgeniou, Y. Lechell, L. Van der Heyden

Effective governance can save AI doomers, accelerationists, altruists and techno-capitalists from themselves.

Entrepreneurship

AI Is Coming for All Our Jobs... Or Is It?

Rachel Eva Lim

How leaders, employees and organisations can better prepare themselves for the impact of AI.

Leadership & Organisations

How Networks Actually Harm Organisations

Jason P. Davis

Digital technologies create digital relationships that limit companies ability to innovate and change.

Leadership & Organisations

Ten Ways Boards Need to Transform

Annet Aris

How governance must pivot in the face of accelerating change.

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD Insights: November 2023 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on human morality, publishing cycles, manufacturing in low-income markets, virtual assessments in acute care services and sarcasm.

Leadership & Organisations

Escape the Grip of Greed and Envy

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Six steps to overcome the twin terrors of greed and envy and embrace being “good enough”.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Pitfalls of Giving Feedback Across Genders

Erin Meyer

To best navigate gender divides, pay attention to perceived power imbalances.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Handle Dominant Leaders

Graham Ward

Is your boss acting like a guru? Take charge by asserting yourself and setting clear boundaries.

Leadership & Organisations

Why You’re Missing Out on the Best Ideas

S.Park, H. Piezunka, L. Dahlander

Businesses and leaders influence the kinds of ideas they receive without even realising it.

Strategy

How Does Self-Serving Attribution Affect Strategic Decisions?

Ji-Yub (Jay) Kim

How a firm evaluates its past alliance performance can influence its choice between future alliances and acquisitions.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Handle Foolish People

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Exploring the roots of stupidity and strategies to combat the ignorance of others.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Making Stress Work for Organisations

F. J. Nitsch, L. V. Wassenhove

Moderate stress boosts performance. But can companies determine “optimal" stress levels for their employees?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Giving Feedback Across Cultures

Erin Meyer

A direct approach that’s welcomed at home can be easily misinterpreted as aggressive elsewhere.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leadership Shapes Sustainability Governance

Ron Soonieus

Amid regulatory and societal pressures to meet sustainability standards, strong personal leadership in the boardroom is needed to ensure competitive advantage and corporate longevity.

Career

Are Multiple Job Interview Rounds Really Necessary?

Chengyi Lin

How companies can simplify the process without compromising their evaluation of candidates.

Strategy

A Simple Corporate Strategy for a Better Political Game

Xiaowei Rose Luo

Even within the same government, different branches may have divergent goals. Here’s how firms can play this to their advantage.

Leadership & Organisations

Strategies for Building and Boosting Psychological Safety

M. Mortensen, M. Guadalupe, N. Furr, H. Bresman

INSEAD research highlights practical approaches to integrate psychological safety into team dynamics.

Leadership & Organisations

Solving the Problem of Remote Work

Mark Mortensen

A framework to help leaders approach the topic more holistically and effectively.

Strategy

A First Step Towards Resilient Organisations

Ekin Ilseven

Cultivating resilience in the face of organisational crises hinges on the foundation of a clear strategy, heightened awareness and robust reserves.

Marketing

INSEAD Insights: September 2023 Research Picks

Lily Fang

Recent findings on online marketplace dynamics, new market creation, trust in AI, diversity in corporate boards and consumer choices.

Family Business

The Power of Distinct Owners as Value Catalysts

M. Massa, L. Van der Heyden, K. Taraporevala

Uncovering the unique elements owners need to achieve business success and resilience.

Strategy

Inside the Black Box Crucial to Megaproject Success

S. Shekshnia, V. Vyas

Despite their importance to the global economy, most megaprojects fail to be delivered on budget or schedule. Here’s how managers could improve on that dismal record.

Leadership & Organisations

Letting Go of the Urge to Rescue

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Exploring the motivations behind our need to help others and embracing a balanced approach to offering assistance.

Leadership & Organisations

Stop Going It Alone

Michael Jarrett

Negotiating radical organisational change needs to be a collective effort.
1 comment

Career

A Holistic Approach to Navigating the New Workplace

Mark Mortensen

How to foster a thriving and sustainable workplace culture to contend with the realities of the new office.

Leadership & Organisations

Governance in the Age of Technological Innovation

Geraldine Ee

With new technologies redefining the global business ecosystem, how can boards navigate these changes and reinvent their business models?

Entrepreneurship

What All Tech Start-Ups Need to Succeed

T. Evgeniou, L. Van der Heyden, Y. Lechelle

Governance exists to help tech entrepreneurs prevent value destruction from day one.

Career

Retirement and Beyond: The Last Days of Executives

Jose-Luis Alvarez

How to plan for the end of the professional life and a smooth transition to retirement.

Leadership & Organisations

How Women Leaders Benefit From Using Humour

Ella Miron-Spektor

New research suggests that being funny helps leaders gain influence, and that women benefit more than men from using humour in public speaking.
1 comment

Career

Breaking the Cycle of Self-Sabotage

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

A roadmap for identifying and overcoming the self-defeating habits that hold you back.
1 comment

Strategy

Intellectual Honesty Is Critical for Innovation

Nathan Furr

Here’s how to balance psychological safety and intellectual honesty for better team performance.

Leadership & Organisations

How Corporate Thought Leadership Drives Business Success

Pawel Korzynski

What makes an organisation an opinion leader and how it affects business revenue.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Joint Strategic Decisions: Do We All Need to Agree?

H. Piezunka, O. Schilke

How organisations’ decision-making rules affect the way individual managers vote.

Leadership & Organisations

Why the World Needs Ambidextrous Leaders

Charles Galunic

What the launch of ChatGPT can teach executives about leading in disruptive times.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Rapidly Test New Organisation Designs

Phanish Puranam

Instead of blindly adopting industry best practice, companies can use gamified randomised control trials to pilot new organisation designs.

Leadership & Organisations

It Doesn't Have to Be Lonely at the Top

Narayan Pant

Tips for leaders to gain valuable, actionable and informed feedback from their peers.

Strategy

Demystifying China’s Internet Giants

Guoli Chen

A behind-the-scenes look at what makes or breaks China’s Big Tech flagbearers and their foreign exploits.

Entrepreneurship

China’s Internet Giants: The Nuts and Bolts of Going Global

G. Chen, J. Li

The lowdown on how ByteDance, Shein and Xiaomi succeeded outside of China while WeChat failed.

Leadership & Organisations

ChatGPT and the Future of Business Education

P. Puranam, P. Dutt, P. Wibbens, A. Ovchinnikov, V. Sevcenko, T. Evgeniou, P. Parker

How ChatGPT can help – and hinder – research and learning at business schools.

Leadership & Organisations

How Storytelling Makes You a Better Leader

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Purposeful storytelling isn’t show business, it’s good business.
1 comment

Entrepreneurship

Solving Grand Societal Challenges Through Creative Organisation Design

A. Szerb, I. Kivleniece, V. A. Aggarwal

Combining for-profit entrepreneurship with a non-profit social mission through novel organisation design can achieve scale and impact.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Hierarchies in Organisations Aren’t All Bad

P. Puranam, Ö. Koçak, D. A. Levinthal

Hierarchical structures can be useful even for teams that need to be agile.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leading Change in Turbulence: Case of Discovery Inc.

J. Petriglieri, G. Petriglieri, M. Soldi

In this video, Marinella Soldi shares ways to navigate the turbulent waters of digital transformation and why it is important to tackle both the strategic and cultural facets of change.

Leadership & Organisations

When Two Isn’t Always Better Than One

M. Bikard, K. Vakili, F. Teodoridis

Receiving outsized credit can encourage individuals to work together even when it results in lower-quality output.

Responsibility

In Times of Chaos, Know Yourself

Marc Le Menestrel

Self-aware leaders see the beauty in chaos and look within to find meaningful solutions.

Operations

Twitter's Remarkable Mission in a Divided World

T. Evgeniou, L. Van der Heyden

Good governance is key to ensure that exceptional people, organisations and countries realise their full potential.

Leadership & Organisations

Our Best of 2022: Making Sense of an Uncertain World

INSEAD Knowledge

This year’s trending articles offer insights ranging from how to work and manage better to what the economy might hold in 2023.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Break Free From Herd Mentality

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Nurturing independent thought can help us overcome dangerous sheeple behaviour and groupthink.
1 comment

Strategy

Managing in an Unimaginable World

José Santos

Business leaders can leverage serendipity to help their companies deal with far-reaching market shocks.

Career

Collaborations That Are Bad for Business but Benefit Employees

H. Piezunka, T. Grohsjean

Sharing a partner with competing companies hinders the success of firms but helps employees’ careers.

Leadership & Organisations

Live Abroad to Excel in the Language of Leadership

INSEAD Knowledge

Leaders with broad multicultural experiences are better communicators and lead more effectively, particularly in multinational teams.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Change Someone’s Mind

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Powerful storytelling can awaken curiosity and challenge people to shift their outlook.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Really Simple Steps to Creating an Innovation Engine

Lee Seok Hwai

All companies need to do is give employees permission to generate ideas and nudge them in the right direction – then get out of the way, said Ben Bensaou in a Thinkers50 webinar.

Responsibility

GHG Emissions Reduction: Scientific Rigour and Stakeholder Engagement

A. Atasu, A. Cselotei

How a step-by-step approach to sustainability helped INSEAD ensure meaningful results.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Navigating the New World of Work

Rachel Eva Lim

Firms need to focus on building an inclusive environment and a culture of trust to overcome the challenges of remote or hybrid work.

Career

The Power of Networking in the New Economy

F. Godart, A. Mears

In today’s gig economy, fleeting ties can be valuable to the career of the gig worker.

Leadership & Organisations

Embracing Diversity With a Growth Mindset

K. Kuwabara, J. Cao

Getting along with others is about more than just having things in common.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Communication Breaks Down

P. Puranam, Ö. Koçak

As workplaces become more diverse and work becomes more distributed, it is more important than ever to converge on a common code for effective communication.

Leadership & Organisations

Why The World is Attracted to Neo-Authoritarian Leaders

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Leaders like Donald Trump do not rise in a vacuum. But what draws people to authoritarian rulers?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Show Compassion Without Compromising on Performance

M. Mortensen, H. K. Gardner

Many leaders think they have to choose between delivering results and supporting employees’ needs. They don’t – but doing both sustainably requires careful navigation.

Leadership & Organisations

Could Living Near the Office Make You a Better CEO?

M. Bennedsen, M. D. Amore, B. Larsen

Besides enjoying a shorter commute, living close to the office may allow CEOs to boost ties with employees and the firm’s bottom line.

Leadership & Organisations

What Religion Teaches Us About Great Leadership

Elizabeth Florent Treacy

What can guiding figures and best practices in Judaism, Islam and Catholicism tell us about leadership?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Special Bond Behind Every Brilliant Idea

M. Lazar, E. Miron-Spektor, J. Mueller

The way we view ourselves shapes the way we develop and connect with our own ideas.

Leadership & Organisations

Paradox Mindset: The Source of Remarkable Creativity in Teams

E. Miron-Spektor, K. Emich, L. Argote, W. Smith

Teams are more successful if they embrace internal differences and explore conflicting ideas instead of glossing over them.

Leadership & Organisations

The X Factor in Crafting New CXO Roles Successfully

J. L. Alvarez, S. Svejenova

CXO roles have proliferated in recent decades, making it difficult for some title holders to find their footing in an ever-changing C-suite landscape.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Leaders Won’t Stop Waging Wars

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

War brings out the worst in people and destroys the very foundations of humanity.

Leadership & Organisations

Finding Meaning in Life

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Create a compelling self-narrative based on the five pillars that influence the way we experience meaning.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Organising in the Metaverse: Five FAQs for Managers

V. F. He, P. Puranam

An explainer on how social interaction in all its forms might take place in the virtual universe.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

What the World Can Learn From Nordic Boards

S. Shekshnia, S. B. Jensen, L. Engstam

Proactive, engaged and democratic, corporate boards in Nordic countries are well-placed to deal with today’s increasingly complex operating environments.

Leadership & Organisations

Has Hybridity Killed Teamwork?

C. N. Hadley, M. Mortensen

The time has come to check whether the benefits of teamwork still outweigh the costs.

Leadership & Organisations

What It Means to Lead in a Multipolar World

H. Falcão, M. Le Menestrel

By overcoming our fears and creating a brave space for dialogue, we can relate and lead better in the new multipolar world.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Psychological Safety Unlocks the Potential of Diverse Teams

H. Bresman, A. C. Edmondson

The dissimilar backgrounds of diverse team members often result in clashes unless care is taken to create a psychologically safe environment.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Taming Your Inner Critic

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Eight concrete ways to lead a more contented life.

Career

How Family-Work Conflict Keeps Us Glued to Our Mobile Phones

C. Trombini, M. Magni, M. Ahuja

Torn between family obligations and work, many people can’t resist working on their phones after hours, creating a downward spiral for their well-being and home life.

Leadership & Organisations

Creating People-Centric International Organisations With AI

R. McLachlin, K. Tatarinov, T. Ambos, P. Puranam

The United Nations is both a fascinating playground for artificial intelligence applications and a showcase of AI implementation problems and solutions.

Strategy

ENGIE: Powering the Energy Transition With Data

P. Boza, T. Evgeniou, M. Sarkar

What does it take for a utility company to develop a data- and AI-driven software business?
1 comment

Family Business

When Two Leaders Collide, the Result Can Be Less Fraud

Y. Guo, X. R. Luo, D. Li

When the head of a family firm ranks lower in the family hierarchy than another leader at that firm, the misalignment can help prevent fraud in the emerging market context.

Leadership & Organisations

Rethinking the Role of Leaders in the Creative Process

S. Harrison, E. Rouse

A strong vision and a more disciplined approach can actually equal more creative results.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

In Praise of Dictators: A Satire

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Liberal democracies are on the decline.
1 comment

Entrepreneurship

The Start-Up Blind Spot That Trips New Ventures

Phanish Puranam

Having a great business plan is not enough. Start-ups also need good organisation design.

Leadership & Organisations

How Conversations About Work Affect Closeness

Spencer Harrison

'The 36 Questions That Lead to Love’ can teach us something about fostering connectedness and trust in the organisation.

Leadership & Organisations

Into the Mind of White-Collar Criminals

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

What society and business schools can do to stop corporate crimes.

Leadership & Organisations

Gratitude Is More Powerful Than You Think

C. Trombini, P. M. Tang, R. Ilies

Regular appreciation and thanks from service users can make a huge difference in the lives of burnt out essential workers.

Leadership & Organisations

Senior Leaders As Chief Reframing Officers

Ben M. Bensaou

The important role of leaders in giving their employees the space and permission to get creative.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Making Sure That Everyone Knows Their Place

A. Yap, N. Madan, P. Puranam

Why formal structures and greater diversity create status disagreements and how to fix the issue.

Responsibility

Lessons in Sustainable Change Management: #deCOALonize Kenya

W. Mungai, L. White, Z. Kinias

The campaign to prevent the construction of a coal power plant on an idyllic island in the Indian Ocean.

Leadership & Organisations

Should Employees Be Allowed to Choose What They Want to Do?

P. Puranam, M. Raveendran

The degree of specialisation is the deciding factor.

Responsibility

Six Global Trends in Business and Society

I. Mihov, K. Le Goulven, M. Stabile

A stark look at the risks business education must address in 2022.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Meditating Away a Guilty Conscience

A. C. Hafenbrack, M. LaPalme, I. Solal

Mindfulness meditation can make one feel less bad about moral violations as well as lessen the desire to make amends.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Carpe Diem: Don’t Postpone Your Dreams

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Far from a hedonistic cry, carpe diem instructs us to live a life of meaning.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

AI: A World of New Opportunity and Risk

T. Evgeniou, K. Firth-Butterfield, A. Sarkar, C. Zimmerman

A new toolkit for C-suite execs on how to responsibly adopt artificial intelligence.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Middle Managers: The Forgotten Heroes of Innovation

Ben M. Bensaou

The importance of building a support network to implement promising ideas.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Nasdaq’s Board Diversity Rule Creates Potential for Real Change

F. Henderson, Z. Kinias, C. Zeisberger

The new rules requiring qualitative and quantitative disclosure about board diversity will better inform investors and (hopefully) spur further progress.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Seven Ways to Put Procrastination Behind You

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Don’t chalk it up to a lack of motivation.

Leadership & Organisations

The Pursuit of Purpose May Be Harming Your Organisation

Winnie Jiang

People who see their work as a calling tend to be regarded as better employees, with unintended consequences for co-workers as well as their organisation.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Post-Pandemic, Firms Need Chief Social Connectivity Officers

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

In this new hybrid working environment, people shouldn’t go to the office to stare at their computer, but to connect.

Leadership & Organisations

Innovation Is Everyone’s Business

Ben M. Bensaou

Offering employees the tools and motivation to create ideas is the key to an innovative organisation.

Leadership & Organisations

Aligning Individual and Organisational Values

M. Guadalupe, Z. Kinias, F. Schloderer

How employees’ personal values fit within their organisation.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Covid Has Accentuated Our Every Vice

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Of all seven deadly sins, leaders need to guard against pride.

Leadership & Organisations

The Politics of Influence in Top Management Team Meetings

M. Jarrett, F. Liu, S. Maitlis

Interactions between the chief executive and other members of the top management team appear to follow distinct scripts. Managers who take note can boost their standing or stay out of harm’s way.

Leadership & Organisations

Is Stargazing Your Preferred Management Style?

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

For too many leaders, astrology acts as a crutch that gives them a false sense of control in an uncertain world.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Three Steps to Optimising Your Firm’s Hybrid Work Strategy

Mark Mortensen

You need a strong process to reconcile the needs and wants of your various stakeholders.

Leadership & Organisations

When Authenticity Means Conflict: Towards a Truly Inclusive Organisation

Natalia Karelaia

Rightfully celebrated, authenticity in the workplace may have some limitations.

Leadership & Organisations

What Distinguishes the Super Rich From the Rest of Us

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Peeking into the inner theatre of the seriously wealthy.

Leadership & Organisations

Cancelled by Association: How Stigma Spreads in Different Cultures

Tianyu He

The tendency to stigmatise others for misdeeds committed by family members appears to extend to even acquaintances and is stronger in close-knit cultures.

Leadership & Organisations

The Essence of Agility and Resilience After Covid

P. Zemsky, S. Hasija

Navigating unprecedented levels of uncertainty takes a careful combination of technology and talent.

Leadership & Organisations

How “Mind-Body Dissonance” Leads to Creative Thinking

Li Huang

Hacking human evolution to unlock innovative potential in our brains.

Leadership & Organisations

How the Afterglow of Victory Boosts Future Performance

Miguel Sousa Lobo

When we perform well together, we feel less tense with each other, and when we feel less tense with each other, we perform better.

Leadership & Organisations

Six Steps to Overcome Shame

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

As old as time and very much universal, feelings of shame can lead to self-destructive behaviour in even the best of leaders.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Dimensions of Leadership Agility

Renita Kalhorn

There is one certainty in a VUCA world: The solution that works today may not work tomorrow.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Marked for Disruption, Deep in Denial: Law Firms at a Crossroads

A. Fruehmann, R. Lehman

The greatest threat to the survival of law firms isn’t technological, but psychological.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Mixing Business and Pleasure for Competitive Advantage

E. Miron-Spektor, M. Lazar

A recent study shows how entrepreneurial team formation can be improved by combining two established strategies.

Leadership & Organisations

The Complex Psychology of Covid-19 Compliance

Wilson Cyrus Lai

Three main psychological factors helped determine whether people responded to first-wave Covid restrictions with deference or defiance.

Leadership & Organisations

Two CEOs, No Drama: Ground Rules for Co-Leadership

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

The co-CEO model can actually work. Here’s how.

Strategy

The Relationships That Create Successful Acquisitions

Laurence Capron

A study of start-up acquisitions shows important patterns on both sides lead to a successful integration.

Leadership & Organisations

Your Leadership Toolbox: A Coaching Approach

Iffet Türken

How you can use tips from coaches to adapt to a world in flux.

Leadership & Organisations

Without Psychological Safety, Hybrid Work Won’t Work

M. Mortensen, A. C. Edmondson

People managers have their work cut out for them.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Our Addiction to Charismatic Leaders Needs to Stop

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

The antidote to narcissistic leaders who coast on their charisma is a paradigm shift in education.
9 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Make the Internet Moderate Again

Nadav Klein

Extremist opinion looms larger when the moderate majority stays silent online. But there’s a simple and cost-free way to balance out the discourse.

Leadership & Organisations

Four Steps to Securing Your Leadership Mandate

Michele L. Gorgodian

Stop hiding your leadership light under a bushel. Achieving the legitimacy you deserve in your organisation entails a sequential process.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Competencies and Constraints That Determine Leadership Success

Pawel Korzynski

A novel management theory looks past individual leaders to constraints that might limit their effectiveness.

Leadership & Organisations

Four Ways Today’s Teams Are Making Us Lonely

M. Mortensen, C. Hadley

They say it’s lonely at the top. But in the workplace, even team members are feeling lonely.

Leadership & Organisations

A Seven-Step Choreography for Thriving Teams

V. Dominé, F. Coluccia

Changes at team level will never take hold unless individuals’ objectives and behaviours are synchronised with those of the group.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Keeping Meaning Alive as Your Workload Surges

Winnie Jiang

These days, we’re all expected to do more. But that doesn’t mean the psychological fulfilment we get from our work has to suffer.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Some Employees Improve Their Creativity and Others Don’t

Ella Miron-Spektor

How our beliefs about creativity explain our ability to improve and sustain it over time.

Leadership & Organisations

Can Managers Who Wear Many Hats Be Trusted?

Henrich Greve

The more diverse your goals are, the greater the temptation to muddy the waters on performance.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Bluebeard Revisited: Knowledge Is Power

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Long seen as a cautionary tale about women’s curiosity, it should be reinterpreted as the story of a woman’s emancipation.

Leadership & Organisations

From Fear to Enlightenment: Building Resilience During Covid Year One

Lionel Frankfort

The four tools and strategies top leaders used most to convert stress and anxiety into positive energy.
1 comment

Operations

Putting People at the Centre of Operations

Guillaume Roels

The field of operations management has deep roots in developing effective processes for people. How can we encourage further growth in this area?

Leadership & Organisations

The Darker Side of Organisational Life

Cultural change is not for the faint-hearted or the politically correct.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Tame a Belligerent Colleague

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Antagonistic behaviour is usually rooted in low self-esteem.

Leadership & Organisations

Strategy and Leadership Lessons From the ‘Notorious RBG’

C. Lin, F. A. Henderson, Z. Kinias

As the business world increasingly strives to be a catalyst for social justice and societal progress, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work provides many valuable lessons for leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Cooking Up a Creative Community

Li Huang & Spencer Harrison

A recipe based on INSEAD research.

Leadership & Organisations

The Next Decade Will Be a Leadership Game Changer

Stanislav Shekshnia

Success begins with a clear-eyed understanding of the trends that will define the years to come.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Group Dynamics That Define Well-Functioning Boards

Vincent H. Dominé

There is an intangible aspect to successful boards that cannot be captured by curating the right CVs.

Career

Social Media Helps Global “Dream Teams” Come Together

P. Korzynski and G. Mazurek

Academic international collaboration is now evolving beyond conferences or formal networks as constantly improving social media connects more researchers.

Leadership & Organisations

Prospects and Pitfalls for the Post-Pandemic Organisation

Phanish Puranam

Big changes are coming for organisations and organisation designs. Whether they will be for good or ill depends on how leaders confront three key possibilities uncovered by the pandemic.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

What It Means to Embark on a Journey of Change

Isabelle Laporte

Many executives have a nagging sense that something is amiss in their lives. But not all of them find the courage – or the tools – to tackle what needs fixing.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What’s Style Got to Do With Strategy?

Frédéric Godart

Careful calibration of aesthetics and style can elevate companies and individuals above the competition.

Leadership & Organisations

What Ails Corporate Executive Committees?

Jose-Luis Alvarez

Fragmentation among top leadership teams is widespread. CEOs should pay heed – and sharpen their most important strategy execution tool.

Leadership & Organisations

How the Discomfort of Paradox Can Unlock Creativity

Rachael Noyes

The transformative power of holding the tension of opposites and learning to live with contradiction.

Leadership & Organisations

Teams in Evolution – and Revolution – After the Pandemic

H. Bresman, M. Mortensen

How sensemaking can help you cope with unplanned, constant changes in your team.

Leadership & Organisations

What Servant Leadership Is Not

There’s no magic formula for servant leadership, but there are a few common misconceptions about what it means to put your team’s needs first.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Our Best of 2020: Leadership Between Two Worlds

INSEAD Knowledge

This year's top articles take stock of the Covid-19 crisis, its future impact and the way forward.

Leadership & Organisations

How Technology Threatens Mental Health – Especially if You’re Inauthentic

P. Korzynski, C. Rook, E. Florent Treacy, M. F. R. Kets de Vries

When the personality you show the world doesn’t match your true self, it can sap the energy you would otherwise need to deal with technostress.

Leadership & Organisations

Workplace Mental Health Is a Business Asset. Treat It That Way

Enoch Li

The most successful initiatives deliver employee well-being programmes as a strategic “product”, with four fundamental planning considerations.

Leadership & Organisations

Goals Just Before Halftime Mean More – in Football and Business

Henrich Greve

Examining why 45th-minute goals have outsized importance reveals how timing can affect the outcome of virtually all sorts of competitions.

Leadership & Organisations

“Too Elevated”: Raf Simons’s Troubled Stint at Calvin Klein

Frédéric Godart

A short-lived partnership between the sprawling American brand and the celebrated Belgian designer highlights the importance of fit in all its forms.

Leadership & Organisations

Calmer Waters: President Biden’s Prospective Foreign Policy

The new president’s foreign policy will differ from Trump’s in style, language and tone more than in substance.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Organisational Data: The Silver Lining in the Covid-19 Cloud

P Puranam, J. Clément

The shift to virtual working has produced a data boom that could revolutionise organisations – if they know what to do with it.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Ready Are You for the Work-from-Anywhere Era?

Benjamin Kessler

Advice from academics and practitioners who are well-versed in the remote working paradigm.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Great Covid-Driven Teamwork Divide

M. Lee, K. Veltman

For most teams, the pandemic either brought colleagues closer or drove them increasingly apart. There are three key reasons why.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Build a C-Suite in Less Than Two Years

B Aubrey, J Davis, T Mannarelli

Indonesian state-owned giant Pertamina had a problem: Its top leaders were all retiring at once. The solution? A new kind of leadership accelerator.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership in Wicked Times

N. Karalaia, L. Van der Heyden

We face extraordinary problems calling for new leadership approaches.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Music Industry’s Best-Kept Secret? A Gender Creativity Gap

Female solo artists are more likely to put out more creative songs than their male counterparts. The key question is why. Gender inequality and representation in the industry may hold the answer.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Recognising the Red Flags of Workplace Mental Health

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Organisations have a responsibility towards their staff.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Netflix Finds Innovation on the Edge of Chaos

Benjamin Kessler

How did a DVD-by-mail company transform itself into a leading global entertainment brand? By rejecting mediocrity, embracing negative feedback and turning hierarchy on its head.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

A Checklist for Boards in the New Normal

S. Shekshnia, V. Zagieva, M. Nazarova

Covid-19 has spurred corporate boards to improvise new practices while keeping those that have served them well. Here’s a run-down.

Leadership & Organisations

Better Networking Begins With Your Beliefs

Ko Kuwabara

It doesn’t take very much to bridge the “knowing-doing” gap in networking – even during a pandemic.

Leadership & Organisations

What to Do When Stress Puts You in “Survival Mode”

Do you believe that constant stress is unavoidable? Good for performance? Actually, neither is true.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Listen and Ask Questions for Effective Teamwork

Good ideas and solutions often arise when we ask open-ended questions.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Deconstructing Learning, Reconstructing Education

Ilian Mihov

Covid-19 will change higher education for good – and, ultimately, for the better.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Pandemic or No, It’s Business as Usual for Boards

S. Shekshnia, V. Zagieva, M. Nazarova

For now, corporate boards prefer to keep the status quo – and the long view – in the face of Covid-19 upheaval.

Leadership & Organisations

How I Taught the ‘Team from Hell’ to Trust Each Other

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Virtual team coaching can help turn around dysfunctional teams.

Leadership & Organisations

Power, Politics and Crisis Response on the Board

It’s not the individual directors – it’s the competing coalitions they form that determine what boards will do.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Why the World Needs Self-Reflective Leaders

Isabelle Laporte

The coronavirus crisis facilitates the rise of autocratic and narcissistic leaders just when we least need them.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Boards Are Coping With Covid-19

Enrico Diecidue & Timothy Rowley

A new survey provides a snapshot of corporate boards’ resilience to challenges and risks posed by the pandemic.

Leadership & Organisations

Three CEO Strategies to Guide Companies Through Crises

S. Shekshnia, M. Nazarova

We distil top executives’ experience for the ideas that work.

Leadership & Organisations

The Advantages of Being (Seen as) Authentic

Feeling authentic, acting authentically and coming across as authentic are very different things, but are equally important.
1 comment

Operations

When Several Queues Are Better Than One

G. Roels, H. Song & M. Armony

One reliable method of queueing is less effective in knowledge industries. Here’s why.

Leadership & Organisations

Networking in the New Reality

Lee Seok Hwai

Curiosity and reciprocity, plus some ingenuity, will help you build relationships in the age of Zoom.

Leadership & Organisations

The Two Faces of Leadership

Benjamin Kessler

It’s not only what leaders do in the spotlight that counts. Great leaders also know how to manage the organisational machinery behind the scenes.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Resilient Leaders Think

Rachael Noyes

Can you encounter adverse circumstances and emerge stronger from them?

Leadership & Organisations

Battling ‘Covid-19 Brain’

H. Plassmann, B. Kessler

Here’s the science on how stressful events like Covid-19 take a toll on the best of us.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

In the Current Crisis, Less Hierarchical Companies Show Special Resilience

Lional Frankfort & Noah Askin

How can more traditional organisations leverage the cultural and behavioural aspects of self-management imposed by the Covid-19 crisis?

Leadership & Organisations

How Leaders Can Cultivate Patience in an Impatient World

Nine ways to develop this important “muscle” and reap its mental health benefits.
1 comment

Strategy

Creating, Fast and Slow

Michaël Bikard

Instead of bickering about the superiority of specialists or generalists, why not recognise that creative strategies involve trade-offs?

Leadership & Organisations

Covid-Era CEOs Are ‘Keen, Tough or Edgy’

S. Shekshnia, M. Nazarova

Not all CEOs are created equal, but everyone can come out of this crisis stronger.

Leadership & Organisations

The Nuts and Bolts of Working for an All-Remote Company

Benjamin Kessler

Conventional companies new to remote working can learn from the successful start-up GitLab, which has never had an office since its inception in 2014.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Six Biggest Post-Lockdown Challenges for Organisations

Lee Seok Hwai

Businesses and other institutions will be judged on how well they adapt to the post-Covid reality.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Seven Ways Leaders Can Prepare for Post-Pandemic Times

Avoid knee-jerk reactions when creating a plan for the future.

Leadership & Organisations

You May Be More Original Than You Think

Ella Miron-Spektor

The assumption that others are similar to us could undermine idea generation.
10 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Three Teamwork Trends That May Not Survive This Crisis

Mike Lee & Koen Veltman

Before COVID-19, workplace teams as we know them were changing. Will their evolution continue, or will we go backwards?

Strategy

Growing Resilience in Uncertain Times

Nathan Furr

Managing the current crisis is an inside job.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Spot When an Employee Is Secretly Struggling

T. Hellwig, C. Rook

An “emotional triaging” technique can help managers identify early warning signs of COVID-19 burn-out and take appropriate actions.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ Looks Much Like the First

Benjamin Kessler

The tyranny of automation is less scary than the automation of tyranny.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What COVID-19 Data Can – and Can’t – Tell Us About Leadership

Hellmut Schütte

Some governments, especially those led by women, have dealt with the pandemic better than others.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Psychic Burden of Working During Lockdown

W. W. Koo, X. Li

Left literally to their own devices, home-bound employees reduce their community participation and experience higher emotional costs.

Economics & Finance

Social Norms for the Era of Social Distancing

Rachael Noyes

What we do determines the trajectory of the pandemic.

Leadership & Organisations

Is Your Crisis Response Defensive or Proactive?

Rachael Noyes

Encouraging dynamic capabilities in your organisation or team can help your business find its feet, even in perilous times.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Overwhelmed? Adopt a Paradox Mindset

Ella Miron-Spektor & Wendy Smith

When resources are scarce, what is the best way to thrive?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Cuomo Are Crisis Comms Champions

Leaders should test their crisis messaging against three checklists.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What Lies Ahead for the Class of 2020?

W. Jiang, J. Singh

The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique opportunity for us to redefine what we mean by a successful leader, a fulfilling career and a meaningful life.

Leadership & Organisations

What Will Life Be Like After the Pandemic?

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Having exposed society’s dysfunction, the COVID-19 crisis invites us to rethink our future.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Discomfort Makes Us More Creative

Benjamin Kessler

Minor disruptions to the status quo, against a background of psychological safety, may be the best formula for creative cultures.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How True Leaders Communicate in a Crisis

Rachael Noyes

Reflect while taking action.

Leadership & Organisations

Seven Questions for Corporate Boards Navigating COVID-19

Stanislav Shekshnia

A guide to steering companies effectively through the crisis and beyond.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Role of the Board in Times of Distress

J. Winter, E. van de Loo

If companies are to survive the coronavirus, corporate boards need to exercise collaborative, proactive leadership.

Leadership & Organisations

What Newly Remote Teams Need, Right Now

P. Puranam, M. Minervini

Our survey reveals that in the transition to remote working, the technology is fine but the organisation needs help.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Coping With Life in Lockdown

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

What if we used the COVID-19 crisis to reconnect with others and ourselves?
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Three Main Challenges of Remote Working

Mark Mortensen

Even for long-established teams, moving from physical to virtual is a game-changer.
1 comment

Strategy

TMT: The Unit for Success

How the right mix of experience and innovation generates a great start-up top management team.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Why Leaders Should Embrace Their Dark Side

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Not acknowledging your shadow is a barrier to being an authentic leader.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Coronavirus Has Taken Remote Work Mainstream. Now What?

P. Puranam, M. Minervini

How organisations survive the COVID-19 stress test will reveal how ready they are for the future of work.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Your History With Money Affects How You Negotiate

The mindset fostered by financial scarcity hinders the pursuit of win-win outcomes.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

When in Doubt, Leaders Should Ask Questions

Natalia Karelaia

Inquisitive leaders receive something even better than a good answer: a bump in credibility.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Powerful Leadership of African Women

Lucy Quist

Six women leading the way and inspiring others to realise their potential.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Putting More Women at the Helm of Corporate Boards

Stanislav Shekshnia, Veronika Zagieva & Victoria Zimina

Women make great board chairs. If only there were more of them.

Leadership & Organisations

Pulling the Curtain Back on the Workplace Bully

Bullies are not as powerful as they make themselves out to be.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Challenging Assumptions About Flexible Work

Zoe Kinias & Felicia A. Henderson

How a CEO built better work-life balance in the gruelling property industry.

Leadership & Organisations

Fighting the Loneliness Epidemic

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

How individuals and firms can take action when loneliness becomes a preoccupying concern.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Are Offices Obsolete?

Benjamin Kessler

The COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities of the traditional physically co-located office, forcing many Asian companies to work remotely. However, a small but growing number of tech companies are intendedly going “all-remote”. They may well be harbingers of the future of work.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What Elite Museums Can Teach Us About Running a Creative Business

Frederic Godart

Balancing between the creative imperative and the bottom line is an art perfected by top museums like MoMA.

Leadership & Organisations

Is Your Innovation Process a Corporate Illusion?

V. Vyas, D. Nannicini

The six common blind spots that severely constrain the performance of innovation labs.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Start-ups: The Founding Team Is a Real Magic Bullet

M. Lazar, E. Miron-Spektor

Studies show that the entrepreneurial team may impact a start-up’s long-term success more than its product.

Leadership & Organisations

Is Paranoia Widespread in Your Firm? You’re Not Alone

Trust remains a rare commodity in the workplace. Here’s what management can do about it.

Leadership & Organisations

You May Be a Workplace Hero Without Realising It

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, but they have one thing in common: They don’t see themselves as heroes.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leadership Can Emerge From the Trauma of History

E. van de Loo, L. Tcholakian, R. Lehman

Victims of intergenerational adversity can channel the darkness of the past into five uniquely positive values.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Five Qualities for Leading Business in the 21st Centur)y

Lucy Quist

In an age of uncertainty, people need inspiration.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Kinds of Collaboration That Lead to Successful Innovation

Benjamin Kessler

Learning to innovate requires diligence, patience and (most of all) direct access to skilful role models.

Leadership & Organisations

Our Best of 2019: A Closer Look at Leadership

INSEAD Knowledge Editorial Staff

This year's top articles foreshadow the coming decade's leadership challenges.

Leadership & Organisations

How Managers Self-Sabotage When Giving Negative Feedback

M. Schaerer, R. Swaab

Communication gaps between managers and their employees widen when delivering criticism.

Leadership & Organisations

Want More Creative Breakthroughs? Slow Down

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Constant busyness is what stands between you and more eureka moments.

Leadership & Organisations

A Corporate Governance Paradigm Shift

Directors need to prepare for board renewal and transformation on many levels.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How a Few Minutes of Meditation Makes You a Nicer Co-Worker

A. Hafenbrack, L. Cameron, G. Spreitzer, C. Zhang, L. Noval, S. Shaffakat

Become more helpful and generous after just eight minutes of mindfulness practice.

Leadership & Organisations

When an 80-Hour Workweek Helps

High potentials need to work a lot and in a way that is visible to the firm.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Enlightened by Randomness

Phanish Puranam & Prothit Sen

To train AI properly, organisations may have to take a drastic step: start making decisions with no rhyme or reason.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Cultivate Cross-Silo Leadership

How HR managers can look for, develop and reinforce certain behaviours to break down barriers within their organisations.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

If You’re Feeling Drained, Here’s Why

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Pay attention to your personal “energy barometer” as it reflects your inner happiness.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Enabling Productive Thinking to Develop Gender Balance

Zoe Kinias

Subtle mental shifts can increase people’s responsiveness to the gender gap, and their commitment to doing something about it.

Responsibility

A New Framework for Corporate Activism

Knowing when – and how – to appropriately speak out on political issues is becoming a core skill for business leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Embracing the Paradoxes of Leadership

Ella Miron-Spektor

Why we need to move from an “either/or” to a “both/and” view of priorities.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Keys to Creating Prosperity in Africa

Lucy Quist

While each country must find its own path, every leader working on the continent must commit to improving its brand equity.

Leadership & Organisations

Is Greed Destroying Your Soul?

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Greed is less about accumulating wealth than filling an inner void.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When Is Cool Office Design More Than Window Dressing?

Phanish Puranam & Agustin Chevez

New trends in workplace design may turn out to be as game-changing as the ongoing technological revolution.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It

For real societal change, we should build bridges, not burn them.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Powerful Drivers and Blockers of Leadership

Exploring the hidden forces that motivate and hinder you can make you a better leader.

Leadership & Organisations

Creative Concepts Have Networks, Too

Data from 12 years of high-end fashion reveal clues about the building blocks of successful styles.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Coming Out at Work

Elizabeth Florent Treacy

Practitioner research sheds light on how LGBTQ equality in the workplace benefits everyone, and how best to promote it.

Leadership & Organisations

When Reorganisation Misses the Social Connection

Susan Lynch & Marie Louise Mors

The way we work together is about more than our org chart.

Leadership & Organisations

The Icarus Syndrome: Execs Who Fly Too Close to the Sun

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Leaders always need to keep hubris in check.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

AI = Artificial Imagination?

Theodoros Evgeniou

The “deepfakes” trend proves machine learning and AI have mastered the art of illusion. Are they ready to help your business innovate?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Women Chairs: The Time Is Now

With more women as board chairs, business can better serve society.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Will You End Up as Digital Roadkill?

Caroline Rook & Manfred F. R. Kets-de-Vries

Most of us are so digitally connected that we have become utterly disconnected.

Leadership & Organisations

Team Development in the Era of Slack

Teamwork is happening virtually more and more. Team building should be virtual as well.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Objectives for Moving Forward With AI

Jason P. Davis

Taking ownership of AI is about more than technological competencies – it’s an overarching organisational challenge.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Building Gender Balance Against the Odds

B Kessler, C Cortland, Z Kinias

To enable women’s advancement where it’s needed most, individual, interpersonal and institutional changes are required.

Leadership & Organisations

Why AI’s Video Game Supremacy Matters for Managers

Benjamin Kessler

Today Starcraft II and Dota 2; tomorrow, the business world?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Firms Can Avoid the Mediocrity Trap

Due to envy or insecurity, B-players may fail to hire the best people.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What Makes for Inclusive Working Cultures?

B. Kessler, C. Cortland, Z. Kinias, E. Sherman

Interventions designed to increase women’s cultural fit can also create a better working environment for everyone.

Leadership & Organisations

The Pivotal Management Challenge of the AI Era

Managers and leaders have nothing to fear from AI – except missing out.

Leadership & Organisations

How Shifts in Geopolitical Power Will Affect Corporate Governance

Sonia Tatar

Corporations will have to re-evaluate their values and norms to maintain their longevity and success in the new world order.

Leadership & Organisations

How Firms Can Nurture Internal Thought Leaders

V. Vyas, D. Nannicini

Far from a luxury, thought leadership is about capturing the future.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Cure for the Loneliness of Command

CEOs are quickly derailed without a sense of community.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Freeing Women – and Men – From Gender Stereotypes

B. Kessler, C. Cortland & Z. Kinias

Research from INSEAD’s 2nd annual Women at Work conference offers practical solutions for establishing gender-balanced workplace norms.

Economics & Finance

How PE and VC Are Closing the Gender Gap in Emerging Markets

Claudia Zeisberger & Heather M. Kipnis

If including women in senior private equity and venture capital leadership teams improves returns, why is the gender gap still so pervasive?

Leadership & Organisations

When Talking the Talk Is Enough to Change Culture

Phanish Puranam & Özgecan Koçak

Careful cultural interventions can impart beliefs about collaboration that become self-fulfilling prophecies.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Promoting Gender Balance Is Everyone's Business

Z. Kinias, J. Petriglieri

Progressive companies are moving from awareness to action, and systemic challenges must be overcome.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Authenticity Shapes Your Playlist

Noah Askin & Joeri Mol

In the digital era, the way we assess authenticity in music has changed.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Turn Stress Into Success Once You Reach the Top

Roger Jones

What dozens of experienced CEOs wish someone had told them before they assumed the hot seat.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Lessons From an Olympic Judo Medallist

L. Felipe Monteiro

Bronze-winning Flávio Canto has created a network of dojos that is transforming lives in some of Brazil’s roughest neighbourhoods.

Leadership & Organisations

Lousy Jobs, Lovely Jobs – and the Sagging Middle

Benjamin Kessler

Job-market polarisation is impeding class mobility. What does this mean for the future of management?

Leadership & Organisations

How Regret Can Be Your Friend

When managed properly, regret is a great decision-making tool.

Leadership & Organisations

For the Truth About How Bosses Behave, Ask Their Assistants

Erik van de Loo & Kees Cools

The eyes and ears of corporate culture, executive assistants have a front-row seat to the integrity dilemmas faced by top management.
1 comment

Entrepreneurship

The Multinational Fuelled by Thousands of Entrepreneurs

Felipe Monteiro

Haier’s business model has created a worldwide entrepreneurship movement.
1 comment

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2019

Felipe Monteiro & Bruno Lanvin

Entrepreneurial talent is a critical component of both competitiveness and innovation.

Leadership & Organisations

Have We Reached the Limit of Individualism?

From fake self-esteem to narcissistic leadership, we all bear the high costs of living in an “I” world.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Organisations Can Cultivate Innovation Catalysts

The most innovative leaders possess special skills that cannot be entirely taught. But they can be learnt.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leaders Can Maximise Their Impact

Henrik Bresman & Deborah Ancona

Effective leaders need to know whether their ‘people hat’ or ‘P&L hat’ fits most comfortably.

Leadership & Organisations

The Countries Getting the Highest Return on Education

The key to fostering a more educated populace is not financial – it’s cultural.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Our Best of 2018: New Approaches to Diversity

Our top content from the past year illustrates how global uncertainty is affecting business.

Leadership & Organisations

Algorithms to Decode an Organisation’s Culture (At Last)

Benjamin Kessler

Text analysis based on machine learning is beginning to reveal previously inaccessible truths about organisational culture.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Trust: The Corporate Wellness Initiative of the Future

Manfred Kets de Vries & Katharina Balazs

What if wellness was built directly into corporate DNA instead of being sold to us?
1 comment

Responsibility

Finding Good News for Business and Human Rights After Khashoggi

N. Craig Smith & Markus Scholz

Companies must respond to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder by standing up for human rights.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Five Key Capabilities of Effective Leadership

Deborah Ancona & Henrik Bresman

Don’t try to find them all in one single hero.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

(Re)-Designing Organisations in the Age of Algorithms

Strategy execution still requires organisation design and development skills. But here’s what it may look like in a world of big data and AI.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Is Your Organisation a Cult?

Beware of the cultish techniques that have crossed into the workplace.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Building Gender Balance Through Behavioural Design

Z. Kinias, C. Cortland

What can organisations do when changing mindsets isn’t enough?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Crafting Your Own Leadership Signature

Henrik Bresman & Deborah Ancona

How well can you adapt in an exponentially changing world?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How the Board Can Make the Most of Blockchain

The boardroom will never be the same after the rise of blockchain, nor should it.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Agile May Be Fragile

Phanish Puranam & Julien Clement

The hype around Agile organisations needs some debunking, so that Agile’s actual value can be salvaged.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Human Factor in Digital Transformation Projects

How the people working in government manage tech-driven innovation.

Leadership & Organisations

The Fine Line Between Stubbornness and Stupidity

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

One pathway to greatness is the ability to change one’s mind when proven wrong.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Conditions for a Successful Life

“The only success that is valid is the success that comes at the end.” – Jean-Claude Biver
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Is It Time to Retire the Org Chart?

The boxes-and-arrows approach to organisation design may have outlived its use.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Three Principles of Wise Power

Marc Le Menestrel

If you know how to harness the power of your mind, heart and soul, you will be wiser in the face of surprises and disruption.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Lessons in Women’s Empowerment from India’s Female Village Leaders

The relationships and factors that influence the performance of elected representatives.

Leadership & Organisations

How These Leading CEOs Are Tackling Gender Inequality

Persistently setting new norms helps organisations battle stubborn gender imbalances.
1 comment

Strategy

Why Successful Companies Usually Fail

Y. Doz, K. Wilson

The dynamics of corporate collapse are caused by three phenomena.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Agile Boards of Directors: A Fad or the Future?

Veronika Zagieva & Stanislav Shekshnia

Some Agile principles can be counterproductive in the boardroom, while others can help.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Coach a CEO

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Successful coaching involves working with – not against – an individual’s resistance.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Aim for Transformation, Not Change

V. Vyas, D. Nannicini

Transformation creates attractive futures, while change mends the past.
10 comments

Career

The 10-Point Stress Audit

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

What excessive stress looks like and what you can do about it.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Six Reasons CEOs Fail

Transformational leaders are the exception, not the rule.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Using Play to Address Uncertainties at Work

Enoch Li & Paul Harvey

Pop-up holding environments can help people and teams become more resilient, adaptable and cooperative.

Leadership & Organisations

Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Motivation

A. C. Hafenbrack, K. D. Vohs

Acceptance of the present moment can impact the will to work hard and get things done.
14 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Cultural Attributes of the Most Innovative Companies

Quy Huy & Zhixing Xiao

The case of China’s Longfor Properties proves that “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is not a recipe for innovation.

Leadership & Organisations

How Your Network Can Help and Hurt You

Your performance is dependent on the type of network you have.

Leadership & Organisations

The Pursuit of Money: A Cautionary Tale

Distorted beliefs about money often have their roots in childhood.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Why Power Seekers Give Advice

Li Huang

How giving advice makes some feel powerful and why it can be dangerous.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Key to Cultivating Agility in Decision Making

Marc Le Menestrel

Decision-making excellence requires self-awareness and the ability to choose how to think in different situations.

Leadership & Organisations

Visibly Upset at Work? Blame It on Your Passion

Elizabeth Baily Wolf

Attributing your emotional outbursts to passion will make you seem more competent than if you just apologise or say nothing.

Responsibility

Balancing Profit and Social Welfare: Ten Ways to Do It

N. Craig Smith & Leena Lankoski

On the continuum between profit and social welfare, where should your firm sit?

Leadership & Organisations

How Brazil Is Cleaning Up

Leadership lessons from the centre of Operation Car Wash.

Leadership & Organisations

Once You Have It All, What’s Next?

Where to look for answers to the existential questions many of us grapple with.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why Firms Should Conduct Randomized Controlled Trials

Field experiments help companies to make better decisions, while findings aid academic work.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Best CEOs Are Ready for Crises

S. Shekshnia, K. Kravchenko, E. Williams

Leading CEOs know that a crisis could strike at any time. They’re prepared and cool in the face of adversity.

Leadership & Organisations

Are You on a Collision Course with a Workplace Rival?

H. Piezunka, W. Lee, R. Haynes, M. Bothner

Data from Formula 1 crashes explain how high-stakes collisions with rivals happen.

Leadership & Organisations

What Can Be Done About Bullies at Work?

Stamping out bullying is an uphill battle for everyone involved.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Social Support Sets Women Up for Success at Work

Zoe Kinias & Clarissa Cortland

Organisations are investing heavily to level the playing field for professional women, but they often lack a systematic approach.

Leadership & Organisations

CEOs Should Be Chief Enablement Officers

S. Shekshnia, K. Kravchenko, E. Williams

Leadership is about energising people rather than issuing orders.

Leadership & Organisations

Cultural Brokers Boost the Creative Performance of Diverse Teams

Sujin Jang

Multicultural individuals often play a key role in bridging cultural worlds.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Are You Addicted to Power?

The design of firms fosters power intoxication in their leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Gender Balance: Moving From Awareness to Action

B Kessler, C Cortland, Z Kinias

A clear-eyed, nuanced organisational perspective can strengthen employee engagement and galvanise change.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Ways to Make Your Organisation Agile

Your competition is no longer who it used to be.

Leadership & Organisations

Three Ways to Build Resilience Against Gender Bias

B. Kessler, C. Cortland, Z. Kinias

Simple, low-cost psychological interventions can be part of an organisational toolkit for enabling gender balance.

Leadership & Organisations

Sustaining Digitisation Hinges on Culture

Charles Galunic

Digital transformation can be your Trojan horse for cultural change.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Four Types of Dysfunctional Executives and How to Handle Them

M. F. R. Kets de Vries, C. Rook

Basic understanding and empathy can go a long way in helping toxic leaders recover their best selves.

Leadership & Organisations

How Leading CEOs Nominate Their Top People

S. Shekshnia, K. Kravchenko, E. Williams

The best CEOs have a genuine interest in human beings and commit to developing them.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Truth About Gender Stereotypes

B Kessler, C Cortland, Z Kinias

Unraveling popular notions about gender differences in organisations.

Leadership & Organisations

The Four Essential Roles of a CEO

S. Shekshnia, K. Kravchenko, E. Williams

Twenty global business leaders share the attributes that make them effective.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Beyond Coaching Psychobabble: Let the Buyer Beware

The advertising pitches of many coaches raise false expectations and seem designed to fool the gullible.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Tailored Approaches Needed for Gender Balance

Vinika D. Rao & V. Paddy Padmanabhan

Greater male involvement and tailored programmes are emerging as sources of hope in tackling gender inequality in Asia.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Promoting Gender Balance Wisely

B. Kessler, C. Cortland & Z. Kinias

Researchers are identifying powerful, yet sometimes nuanced interventions that can improve outcomes for women and the businesses and societies they serve.

Leadership & Organisations

The Slow and Steady Progress Towards Gender-Balanced Boards

Sadia Khan

In conservative societies, awareness and discussion of gender diversity issues pave the way for progress.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Happy Talk Can Ruin M&As

Quy Huy

Excessive politeness and positivity can be just as damaging as open conflict.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Do CEOs Deserve Their Pay?

The myths that drive the CEO pay bonanza.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Five Practices of the Most Change-Ready Leaders

S. Shekshnia, V. Zagieva, A. Ulanovsky

Highly successful CEOs in volatile environments delight in turning conventional leadership wisdom on its head.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Fighting Against Dictatorship

Dictatorial types gain and maintain power through a number of social processes and psychological dynamics.
16 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Leadership Benefits of Performance and Storytelling

Dramatic strategy moves audiences, empowers them to play a role and realigns them with a higher purpose.

Leadership & Organisations

Turbulent Times Call for Athletic Leaders

S. Shekshnia; V. Zagieva; A. Ulanovsky

CEOs who can turn turmoil into triumph have many personality traits in common with world-class athletes.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Designing Results-Oriented Leadership Development Programmes

Camelia Ilie & Guillermo Cardoza

Two often-overlooked elements have a significant impact on both individual leaders and organisations.

Leadership & Organisations

Choose Your Leadership Style

Team leadership style doesn’t have to be a personality trait; it can be chosen.

Leadership & Organisations

The Structures That Can Support Your Digital Journey

Digitisation efforts gain real legitimacy only when they move to the business core.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Measure the Health of Your Community

Ten simple ways community managers can assess the ROI of their community.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate Heaven: The ‘Authentizotic’ Organisation

How to create an organisation where people find meaning in, and are captivated by, their work.

Leadership & Organisations

What Really Matters for Your Business Is Forwardship

V. Vyas, D. Nannicini, D. Sherman

Leadership failures are often characterised by a lack of action or a knee-jerk reaction to disruptions.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Make Corporate Hierarchy More Likable

P. Puranam, E. Lee

People clearly prefer flatter organisations, with less power distance between the tip and the base of the pyramid.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Some Men Feel the Need to Win at All Costs

Stefan Thau

Male misbehaviour in negotiations is rooted in our evolutionary history.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate Culture Is an Alarmingly Low Priority for Boards

Erik van de Loo & Jaap Winter

There appears to be a significant discrepancy between what board directors believe and what happens in practice.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Role of Language in the Gender Gap

Our use of language reflects and influences perceptions of gender roles.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Is a Journey, Not a Destination

Ian C. Woodward

Every context requires different talents and skills, so leaders must stay deeply aware and learn to adjust themselves along the way.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

One Question Leaders Should Ask Themselves

Creativity and innovation are unlocked by leaders who enable others.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Three Altitudes of Leadership

Leaders must cultivate the seamless ability to mix forward-vision thinking, tactical execution and self-awareness – across the altitudes of leadership.
10 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Eight Ways to Unlock the Power of Community

A common goal, shared experiences and a sense of camaraderie breaks down walls and fosters collaboration.

Leadership & Organisations

Overcoming Resistance to Digital Change

Leaders need to see the ways in which digital change is different.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Great Leaders Make Work Meaningful

Mired in day-to-day tasks, people easily lose sight of their work’s higher purpose. That’s where great communicators come in.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Preparing Teams to Lead Innovative Change

A new model of organisational change for today’s fast-moving industries.

Leadership & Organisations

The Shape of Hierarchy and Why It Matters

Phanish Puranam & Eucman Lee

Today’s organisations are shaped more like Christmas trees than pyramids.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Bad Influence of Aggressive Bosses

Identifying with an aggressor is a basic strategy for human survival. It’s time to call it out in the workplace.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Scanning and Responding to Digital Change

Digitisation requires organisations to keep a keen eye on the horizon and respond by bending their processes.

Leadership & Organisations

How Boards Will Look in Ten Years

Stanislav Shekshnia & Veronika Zagieva

More women and a wider array of professionals are likely to fill future boards, while technology will play a bigger role in their work.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Can We Fix Hierarchy?

P. Puranam, E. Lee

Societies need new organisational design paradigms, if we are to overcome the urgent challenges ahead.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Four Horsemen of Negotiator Power

Michael Schaerer, Adam Galinsky, Joe Magee

To maximise their success at the bargaining table, negotiators should maximise their power.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Practices of Boards Across the World

Stanislav Shekshnia & Veronika Zagieva

How culture impacts the role of a board chair.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Automation Will Rescue Middle Management

We should view automation as an opportunity to liberate human managers.

Leadership & Organisations

Male Professors Can (and Should) Promote Gender Balance

Henning Piezunka

Male faculty can become powerful gender equality advocates in the classroom.

Leadership & Organisations

There’s More Than One Way to Make the Most of an MBA

Success in an MBA programme may hinge on mastering a friendly sort of rivalry.

Leadership & Organisations

The 3 Es of Effective Board Leadership

Stanislav Shekshnia & Veronika Zagieva

A study of successful board chairs across countries shows how they engage, enable and encourage boards.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Today’s Leaders Require a New Sense of Self

What career transformation really means in a world with few if any guarantees.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

When Extraversion Rhymes With Acquisition

Extravert CEOs have a big appetite for acquisitions, but does it benefit their firms?

Leadership & Organisations

Who You Need for Your Digital Journey

Many different skillsets will be necessary for your organisation’s digital journey.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Diffusing Unconscious Misbehaviour in the Workplace

When colleagues act out, the reason for their misbehaviour is not always obvious.

Leadership & Organisations

Overcoming the Misery of Megaproject Delivery

V. Vyas, D. Nannicini

The “people aspect” of projects is more important than ever before.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

A 10-Point Framework for the Digital Journey

Digitisation is here to stay so organisations should consider treating it as a long-term investment.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Virtues of Unintelligent Organisation Design

Julien Clément & Phanish Puranam

Any structure at all is better than none, as long as it leaves some room to explore.

Leadership & Organisations

Put Women in Charge of Uber

Putting women on boards and in executive positions could be the quick fix that sexist Silicon Valley needs.

Leadership & Organisations

Four Reasons Why Internal Negotiations Are Harder Than External Ones

Horacio Falcao & Alena Komaromi

Don’t assume colleagues will help you out just because you’re on the same team.

Leadership & Organisations

The Teachable Moments of Financial Crisis

Squint hard enough and you can find traces of long-ago crises in the way communities do business today.

Leadership & Organisations

The World’s Smartest Countries

The countries most likely to produce the next Google.
11 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Creating a Culture of Reciprocity

Reciprocity rings can help bring hidden resources to the surface and encourage a culture of generosity.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Strategic Change Is All in the Timing

Quy Huy

Large organisations have many different heartbeats, and change managers need to listen to them all.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Organisation Design Based on Science, Not Superstition

New analytical tools that help us move beyond folk wisdom and placebo effects.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Wisdom Can’t Be Taught

In the pursuit of wisdom, executives may find themselves taking off their masks to become truly authentic and reflective leaders.
13 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Higher Education Institutions Should Internationalise

Schools that desire to be truly international should think like global companies.

Leadership & Organisations

When Losing Employees Boosts Innovation

Andrew Shipilov, Frédéric Godart, Julien Clément

The benefits of losing talent may often outweigh the costs.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Drawings May Get to the Root of Your Silo Issues

Having trouble bringing your teams together to realise your strategy? Drawings may help.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Developing Leaders Through Adversity

Resilience is a hard-earned yet crucial trait for future leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Sharing Power Is Critical to Build Future Leaders

A personal sense of power stems from accumulating short episodes of power, not from a magic wand.

Leadership & Organisations

Higher Education Must Still Go Global

Students need global understanding, now more than ever.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Five Steps to Embed Cutting-Edge Innovation

Loic Sadoulet & Jean-Marc Frangos

Distancing innovation teams from company headquarters can help incubate new ideas.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Tools for Leaders to Leverage Organisational Politics

Navigating four typical domains of organisational politics can help leaders overcome barriers to strategy execution.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Four Ways to Handle Multicultural Differences in a Team

Working across cultures can sometimes be frustrating, but the results are well worth the learning journey.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

12 Questions to Determine Board Effectiveness

With boards facing increased regulatory and diversity pressures, the basics matter more than ever.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The World’s Most Powerful Languages

What leaders should know about English and other languages competing for global influence.

Leadership & Organisations

Organisational Politics Can Be an Asset to Strategy Execution

Identifying the types of political behaviour in your organisation is the first step to using it for positive change.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Dark Side of Flattery

Flattery can trigger resentment and ironically damage the social capital of those who accept it.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Lead Like a Top Chef

World-class chefs confront many leadership challenges shared by corporate leaders and entrepreneurs.

Leadership & Organisations

Cross-Cultural Bonding Leads to Higher Creativity

William Maddux & Andrew Hafenbrack

A close friendship or romance with someone from another culture can enhance outside-the-box thinking.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Lessons from the Return of the Ugly American

Donald Trump’s erosion of the American brand is a cautionary tale for all leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

The Emotional Sophistication Tomorrow’s Leaders Will Need

In an increasingly automated workplace, leaders should concentrate on uniquely human skillsets.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

What Generations X, Y and Z Want From Leadership

Henrik Bresman & Vinika D. Rao

Managers should distribute leadership and make life more efficient for their employees.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Mindfulness Meditation as an On-the-Spot Workplace Intervention

Andrew C. Hafenbrack

Give employees a little time and space to meditate and they’ll be better placed to overcome stress.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Rethinking Network Ties

Professional service executives who base their professional relationships on individual ties bring more value to the firm.

Leadership & Organisations

11 Leadership Guidelines for the Digital Age

Liri Andersson & Ludo Van der Heyden

The old ways of running a company won’t cut it in a digital world.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Networking for Team and/or Self

Frederic Godart

Teams and their leaders may have conflicting networking goals. That needn’t be a problem, but often is.

Leadership & Organisations

Malignant Manipulators: Ticking Time Bombs

Malignant narcissists not only believe they are always right, they vindictively go out on a limb to prove it.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

What Generations X, Y and Z Want from Work Technology

Henrik Bresman & Vinika D. Rao

Future employees expect a seamless virtual office and new levels of flexibility.

Leadership & Organisations

Take the Lead Against Moral Hazard

Graham Ward

In times of uncertainty, leaders have an obligation to create workforces that shape societies, rather than reflect them.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Intelligent Boards Know Their Limits

Alan Zeller, Anil Gaba & Ludo Van der Heyden

Understanding mental biases and the extent of their own knowledge can help board directors make effective decisions.

Leadership & Organisations

Gender Bending Can Challenge Our Biases

Would you think differently about Donald Trump if he were a woman?

Leadership & Organisations

Why Every Workplace Needs a Fool

Office tricksters tell it like it is and contribute to creative growth.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Future of the Corporate University

How firms can maximise the impact – and profitability – of in-house management training.

Leadership & Organisations

Making the Workplace Work for Gens X, Y and Z

Henrik Bresman & Vinika D. Rao

All three generations share an increasing enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, but differ globally in their fears about the future of work.

Leadership & Organisations

How True News Will Beat Fake News

Mark Hunter, Luk Van Wassenhove & Maria Besiou

A wave of community-based media is taking audience and influence from the mainstream.

Leadership & Organisations

When Price Precision Pays in Negotiations

Depending on who you are negotiating with, your offers should be more or less precise.

Leadership & Organisations

What Leaders Can Learn From the Rise of the Outsider

Graham Ward

Times of change and distrust create challenges and some valuable lessons for leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

To Accomplish Difficult Tasks, Combine Discipline With Cheating

Setting stretch goals that incorporate wiggle room is the best way to ensure actual results.

Leadership & Organisations

How Respect Can Set Inmates (and Employees) Free

Respect and a sense of encouragement transform workers’ identities.

Leadership & Organisations

Why the Whole Board Needs to be on Top of Risk Management

Delegating risk oversight to committees is not enough.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Lessons from the Paris Terror Attacks

Loic Sadoulet & Gerlinde Silvis

In times of crisis, be clear about where you want to go and flexible in how you get there.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Diffusing Workplace Anger

Graham Ward

Dealing with your own or other’s anger takes skill and care and it’s crucial for a healthy workplace.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Get Ahead When You Hate Networking

C. Galunic, B. Bensaou, C. Jonczyk Sédès

Networking is important for career growth but not everyone loves it.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Cyber Activists Are Gaining Influence Over Corporations

Social media is filling the gap of the free press in tightly-controlled countries, holding powerful corporations to account.

Leadership & Organisations

What Leaders Can Learn from Both Clinton and Trump

When connecting with an audience, Hillary Clinton leads with the head while Donald Trump comes from the heart: Both hold lessons for today leaders.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Wells Fargo Misread its Own Culture

Corporate leaders are responsible for both the company culture the firm proclaims and that which really exists.

Leadership & Organisations

Teamwork, the Everest Way

The first Singaporean women to reach the summit of Everest used a framework that defines effective teams.

Leadership & Organisations

Renegotiating Peace in Colombia

The government failed to understand how much distrust toward the FARC remains.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Wild Theories Beat Credibility on Social Media

C. Galunic, C. Kaligotla

The propensity of internet users to believe in false ideas has dangerous implications for social media.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Creative Types Need a Balance of Searching and Selling

Frederic Godart & David Dubois

Creative people can take your business to a whole new level, but don’t expect it to be an easy ride.

Leadership & Organisations

Self-Reflecting to Capitalise on Diversity

Instilling a grounded and positive sense of self in employees improves performance and ameliorates hidden bias.

Leadership & Organisations

The Value Lurking in Your “Leadership Unconscious”

Roger Lehman & Erik van de Loo

The crucial components to decision-making dilemmas may exist outside of your conscious awareness.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Overcoming Price Suspicion in Negotiations

Horacio Falcao & Alena Komaromi

Use opportunities to prove your fairness during negotiation.

Leadership & Organisations

Lessons in Destructive Leadership from Africa

Africa is a cautionary example of the need for checks and balances against the abuse of power.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Board Political Leanings Determine CEO Pay

Directors with conservative proclivities are significantly more generous.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Workplace Excellence Can Be Contagious

Collective outcomes soar when top performers mingle with less adept colleagues.

Leadership & Organisations

Prepare Your Exit From the Start

Graham Ward

For many executives walking away can be the hardest part of the job.

Leadership & Organisations

The Epitaph Question

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Thinking about how you would like to be remembered can be a catalyst for radical change.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Reflective Leaders Needed for the Age of Rage

Graham Ward

When collective emotions gather steam, knee jerk reactions can make a bad situation worse.

Leadership & Organisations

Three Questions Humble Leaders Ask

To avoid falling victim to narcissistic tendencies, leaders need to look outside in more ways than one.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When It’s Okay to Mislead Your Employees

Sometimes, everyone having the wrong map is preferable to some having the right map.

Leadership & Organisations

Economic Downturns Undermine Workplace Helping

Employees’ views about success change with the economic outlook, unnecessarily tearing the social fabric of organisations during difficult times.

Leadership & Organisations

The Enigma of Trumpmania

The real mystery behind Donald Trump’s political success is not the man himself, but the zealous power of his supporting masses and the underlying social and psychological dynamics that drive his supporters.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Authentic Liaisons: Creating Bridges across Cultures

A genuine and sincere attitude can break down the most complex of cross-cultural barriers.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Why Empathy Makes for Stronger Organisations

Executives’ ability to see themselves from the outside and others from the inside, plays an important role in effective team formation
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Brexit Wake-Up Call: Time for Fair Process Leadership

With trust long gone, and fair play having given way to continued and self-interested negotiation, a sustainable future for Europe requires new leadership; collaborative, visionary, and inspiring.

Leadership & Organisations

Managing Thrill Seekers

Thrill- seeking employees' addiction to risk can create havoc in the workplace. Managed correctly, their fearlessness can be a great advantage to any organisation.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Three Lessons from Brexit for Business Leaders

The situation in Britain mirrors an even thornier leadership crisis affecting the business world.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Is The Time Ever Right to Flout Procedure?

Is company procedure cast in stone or is there leeway to take your own path in the spirit of a greater compliance?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Eco-therapy: The Walking and Talking Cure

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Urbanisation and today’s “digital” lifestyle promotes stress and a sense of alienation. Does nature hold the key to our inner peace and development?
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

“INVOLVE” – A Toolkit For Fair Process Communication

L. Van der Heyden, I. C. Woodward

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” - Ancient Chinese proverb

Leadership & Organisations

The Most Influential CEOs on Twitter

Digital leaders who get the most attention for themselves and their brands on social media are those who share their personal causes, express their hopes and ambitions and engage with their followers.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Avoidance Destroys Strategic Initiatives

Roger Lehman & John Young

Avoidance is an extremely common response to strategic initiatives that makes executives put off critical issues. To overcome it, look out for some crucial signs.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership “Harem” Style

When there’s no specific goal or role for its members, and constructive discussion makes way for fawning power plays, executive teams become little more than harems for dysfunctional leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Ambiguous Leadership Undermines Compliance

Forcing companies and people to juggle conflicting demands can encourage symbolic compliance.

Leadership & Organisations

Middle Managers Will Rise in Value

Increasing government intervention in business may make middle management more important than ever.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Stop CEO Failure

Philip Anderson

Boards often think the person in the corner office doesn’t need more development, but this couldn’t be further than the truth. To prevent CEOs from flaming out in the top job, they should build frameworks to help them learn.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Biases Ruin Our Judgment Calls

Good decisions are not constrained by biases. But breaking them is not easy.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Seven Signs of the Greed Syndrome

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

It is said that without greed we would still be living in caves but, left unchecked, the insatiable desire for more and better material things can be destructive.
15 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Evolving Leadership in the Digital Age

To have executives change character will always be an uphill struggle but they can learn to improve their behavioural reactions to difficult situations and develop greater emotional intelligence that will turn them into more effective leaders.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Are Women’s Leadership Assumptions Holding Them Back?

There has been a lot of discussion about the stereotypes contributing to the lack of women in the c-suite. But one of the biggest obstacles could be their own assumptions on what path they’re supposed to take.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Are You an Alpha Male Leader?

When drive, competitiveness and commitment are too much.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Can Cities Innovate?

City management today is happening in silos, and urban growth needs are no longer being supported.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Common Goals Not Necessary for Win-Win Negotiations

Negotiators often develop the wrong impression that common interests between the parties are the cornerstone of a successful win-win negotiation.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Intellectual Vacuum Threatening Peace in the Middle East

With literacy rates in the Middle East rising, is the dearth of traditional Arabic texts creating a cultural maelstrom that’s fanning the flames of regional strife?

Leadership & Organisations

U.S. Primaries: A Theatre of the Absurd?

American voters’ anxiety over their future is feeding a rise in political extremism. Is this the death rattle of the American Dream?
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Emerging Market Leaders Should Give Up Some Power

Attracting and retaining talent is one of the top priorities for emerging market executives. To succeed, yield some intellectual leadership to the front lines.

Leadership & Organisations

VW Has Yet to Revamp its Leadership

The enormity of the Volkswagen emissions scandal is a reminder of just how expensive weak governance can be.

Leadership & Organisations

Getting Boards into Reputation Risk Management

Reputation is fast becoming one of the most important risks to manage. Build quantifiable arguments to get boards on board.

Leadership & Organisations

The Face Behind the Chair

No longer an invisible grey figure working behind the scenes on unfathomable tasks, today’s chairperson is younger than expected, experienced, agile, and most likely male.

Leadership & Organisations

Domination Is a Very Risky Negotiation Strategy

When negotiators refuse to consider others’ objectives, they miss out on a much better outcome.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Manage a New World of Risk

Risk managers must shed their reputation as corporate naysayers in order to stay relevant in an ever more perilous world.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Unconventional Habits of Transformational Leaders

Lessons from two Russian CEOs on turning stumbling state companies into global success stories.

Leadership & Organisations

Six Reasons to Hire Military Veterans

Military experience builds the elusive character traits that companies sorely need in their leaders.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When CEO Narcissism Spreads to the Board

Guoli Chen

The push for great corporate governance has failed to identify problems which occur when narcissistic CEOs load their board with images of themselves.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

“Take it or Leave it”: What Message Are You Really Sending?

Most negotiators believe that without power they will be unable to secure the best deal; but translating power into value is not a given or even an easy task.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How to Present Like a Superwoman

Tips to help women present and communicate with power and embody who they truly are.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Need for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Entrepreneurship is not just for startups. It’s a lens through which all organisations should view strategy and leadership in the 21st century to address societal problems.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Even Millennials Need Middle Managers

Middle managers could take the lead in a changing corporate world, if they recognise that their primary value is emotional, not functional.

Leadership & Organisations

Map Your Team’s Cultural Differences

Erin Meyer

The way we are conditioned to see the world in our own culture seems obvious and commonplace. To maximise a multicultural team, managers should identify what is typical in their culture but different from others to open a dialogue of sharing, learning and understanding.

Leadership & Organisations

Four Steps to Manage Your Crucial Conversations

How often have you felt frustrated that a crucial conversation in the business and work arena did not go the way you wanted?

Leadership & Organisations

How to Increase Leaders' Moral Authority

David Dubois

“Power corrupts”? Not necessarily. Organisations can help leaders become more effective moral agents – and make better decisions to boot.

Leadership & Organisations

Are You Sure You Want to Join a Board?

So, you’ve been asked to join a board? You’ll surely do your own due diligence, but beware of a potentially dangerous threat: your own brain
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Creating Boards for the Future

Annet Aris

With the world of business changing so rapidly, boards need greater agility and members from a wider diversity of backgrounds. Less, or unconventionally, experienced executives are a good option.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Finding Balance In Business Education

To create responsible leaders of the future, business schools need to adopt a more holistic approach to education.
4 comments

Responsibility

Stakeholder Strategies Make or Break Sustainable Business

JF. Manzoni, C. Smith, H. Falcão

In an effort to meet sustainability challenges companies are striving to live up to stakeholder expectations.

Leadership & Organisations

Managing Godfathers

If your company is expanding overseas, you’ll need to get to know the local “godfathers”, influential individuals who can help or seriously hinder your advance.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Societal Costs of CEO Overconfidence

The higher a CEO’s self-opinion, the less he or she can see the long-term value of corporate social responsibility.

Leadership & Organisations

The Mindset of Internationally Successful Companies

Dennis Lee, Ben Kessler

Risk management for going global requires a delicate balance of detail-oriented preparation and openness to uncertainty.

Leadership & Organisations

The Happiness Equation

When your unhappiness affects your productivity and that of those around you, it’s time to reassess how you are living your life.

Leadership & Organisations

Negotiating Your Way Out of Workplace Conflict

When conflict and mistrust cause a breakdown in working relationships perhaps it’s time to have “that” conversation.

Leadership & Organisations

Giving Negative Feedback Across Cultures

Managers in different parts of the world are conditioned to give feedback in drastically different ways. Understanding why can help you critique more effectively.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Being Sarcastic Boosts Workplace Creativity

Sarcasm, used in the right way, can spark creative thinking in yourself and even in others.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Finding Gravitas

Combining style and substance: Why developing genuine gravitas is important for your career.

Leadership & Organisations

A New Raison d’Etre for the Conglomerate?

Contemporary conglomerates have a unique advantage: the combined problem-solving power of their diverse organisations.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Stay in Business Through a Disaster

Disaster can strike at any time. While crisis manuals are lengthy, they should have three key pillars.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Blinded by Belief

Denialists can have a devastating effect on office politics and productivity; how do you convince someone they are making decisions based on misguided logic?

Leadership & Organisations

Humble Narcissists Make Great Leaders

Narcissism gives executives the self-confidence to aim high, but greatness requires more humble behaviour.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What Business Leaders Can Learn from Generals

The military approaches peacetime with risk management and wartime with uncertainty management. To operate amid uncertainty, managers become leaders and more autonomy is given to troops to ensure agility and resilience.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Distribute Leadership

High performing organisations distribute leadership to wherever the best information and capabilities reside.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why Leaders Should Create Meaningful Environments

Henrik Bresman

Organisations that empower and give meaning to their members are not only more dignified but also more innovative.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Do We Always Need Purpose?

Regain control by better understanding your inner “purpose”.
1 comment

Responsibility

Tackling Unethical Banking: How Far Should Regulators Go?

How far should regulators go to weed out ethically challenged individuals in the banking sector?

Leadership & Organisations

The Power of Gratitude

Money may make the world go around but when it comes to engaging hearts and minds a simple ‘thank you’ can be a great motivator.

Leadership & Organisations

Does Articulating Your Corporate Values Matter?

Listing your corporate values is not enough—companies need to wrestle with their cultures to make a difference, distinguishing them from their peers and updating them as they evolve.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Turning Envy into a Positive Force

Envy, the most corrosive of emotions, lurks in even the most supportive work environment. Take steps to manage your own green-eyed monster.

Leadership & Organisations

Conflict Is Good for Creativity

Conventional thinking says that conflict is bad for teamwork and should be kept out of the office, but putting individuals in a conflictual state of mind can enhance their creativity.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Dark Side of a Funny Situation

A sense of humour can help managers cultivate a cohesive work environment but, when used as a defence strategy, can foment confusion, tension and offence.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Resolving the Conflict Between "Woman" and "Leader"

Women may face more barriers to leadership if there is a perceived conflict between their professional role and their gender. Organisations must detect any gender bias and promote a positive view of women leaders.

Leadership & Organisations

Bridging the Trust Chasm

Whoosh and it’s gone! Trust can evaporate in an instant and organisations are notoriously poor at recovering it. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership Lessons From the Brothers Grimm

Whether it’s kissing frogs, slaying dragons or battling wits with the wicked witch, fairy tales hold salient leadership lessons for today’s executives.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Dividing Team Tasks: Is There a Better Way?

Self-managed teams may sometimes adopt task divisions that are all wrong for the project. Managerial intervention can help avoid this.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Ten Ways to Become a Great Mentor

A great mentor is able to lead their mentee with empathy, sensitivity and patience, while constantly adapting to changing times and circumstances.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Sexual “Cloud” in the Executive Suite

Are sex and man’s unconscious drive for survival keeping women locked out of the C-suite?
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Restoring Humanity to Leadership

Benjamin Kessler

There is no value in asking yourself “Am I a leader?” Instead, ask “Who am I leading? And where am I going?”
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Two-Edged Swords of Global Cosmopolitans

People who live in many countries develop adaptive strengths that can also be weaknesses if not understood.

Leadership & Organisations

Manage Your Team Over Social Media, But Maintain Face Time

Leaders who engage positively on employee social networks improve their firms’ communication effectiveness. But it’s no substitute for appearing in front of employees when issuing directives and giving bad news.

Leadership & Organisations

The Support-Challenge Tightrope in Board-CEO Interactions

Boards must strike the right balance between supporting chief executives and challenging their performance if the relationship is to deliver the best results for the company.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Medical Risks of Increasing Business Travel

S. Hasija, G. Hilary, G. Jakubowski

With more employees travelling than ever before, are organisations covering all the risks facing their executives on the road?
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When Networks Become Shackles for Aspiring Leaders

Martin Gargiulo

Manoeuvering into a position of power requires building relationships that could restrain you later if left unchecked.

Leadership & Organisations

The Cause and Effect of Better Decision-Making

M. Guadalupe, L.Del Carpio

How scientific evidence beats gut feelings when it comes to making better decisions for your company.
1 comment

Strategy

Private Equity vs. The Strategic Acquirer

When private equity firms and strategic acquirers meet on the M&A battlefield they come packing very different strategies and artillery. Who has the advantage?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Loyal Cheaters: When Organisations Promote Wrongdoing

Fraudsters seem to cheat more for their organisation than themselves.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

How Is Our Pilot Feeling Today?: A Courageous Conversation That Could Make a Difference

There is an existing quick assessment of psychological risk factors for high performing individuals. We believe it may help prevent tragedies by detecting subtle signs and symptoms of stress among a group of people who are often reluctant to talk about their problems.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Importance of Seeing the World in Shades of Grey

Executives who see the world in stark contrasts miss the nuances of situations and are less able to compromise to meet common interests.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Most Productive Ways to Disagree Across Cultures

Should you disagree openly or find private channels for feedback? It depends on the cultural backgrounds of your team.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Shattering the Glass Labyrinth of Female Leadership

Leadership development programmes play an important role in forging an equal opportunity path through the complex business world to the C-Suite.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Danger of Being Alexander

Leaders may find it tempting to wage ambitious crusades for personal reward, but eventually their troops can turn on them. Collaboration, often missed, can be a viable and sustainable alternative.
24 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Maximising Innovation with Diversity

Bringing people from different backgrounds together to work in teams can help generate new ideas, but creating diversity across teams can unlock even greater innovation.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Protect Rogue Thinkers

The experience of an undercover cop teaches us that we should protect and support those willing to take risks, not leave them out in the cold when it goes wrong.

Leadership & Organisations

The Path of an Exemplary Leader

Lee Kuan Yew was a pragmatic realist who favoured logical problem solving over idealism. Singapore is his monument.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Hidden Skills of the Well-Travelled

The strength and skills developed by a global cosmopolitan lifestyle can, if identified and used correctly, provide a significant competitive advantage in any marketplace. Employers should seek to unearth them.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Act and Think Like a Leader

To become a successful leader, you have to ditch the conventional “think before doing” logic and instead start acting like a leader in order to start thinking like a leader.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Can You Design an Organisation?

Organisational “master builders” are defined by their problem-solving acumen, not just their experience.

Responsibility

Redefining Sustainability

Sustainability must be reframed as an opportunity if it is to take hold.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Seven Rules to Successful Presentations

Communicating needn’t be a frightening experience. There are some simple rules to take the stress out of presenting that revolve around you.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Negotiating the Cultural Minefield

In cross-cultural negotiations, be aware of cultural differences but don’t feel you have to adapt your behaviour.

Career

Your Rolodex Matters, but by How Much Depends on Your Gender

Men benefit from their connections more than women, especially when they are young.
5 comments

Economics & Finance

What China’s “New Normal” Means for Leaders

Slowing economic growth and the changing shape of leadership and management in China.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Sustainability: From the Back Room to the Board Room

Creating a sustainable future takes more than good intentions. Boards of directors have an obligation to help drive a strategic approach to corporate sustainability.
2 comments

Family Business

How Much Control Should You Have Over Your Firm?

Family ownership can vary from thousands of family members to just one single owner. How to choose the right number for your family business?

Leadership & Organisations

Being Normal Is Not About Fitting In

Trying to fit in is likely to make you miserable. Accepting your differences as assets and applying them is more effective.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Building Trust Across Cultures

Do you trust with your head or with your heart? There is a big difference between cultures when it comes to building trust, and not understanding that can put a business relationship in peril.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Should Organisations “Leak” on Purpose?

Netflix’s mistaken release of the latest season of "House of Cards" is a lesson in what organisations can glean by making an “error” favourable to consumers.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Unveil Your Inner Global Cosmopolitan

Your own life story is more interesting than you think. Learning how to tell it right can open new opportunities.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Make Mistakes Part of Your Career Success

Exposing yourself to risk and failure can help push you up the career ladder. Just make sure someone’s watching.
3 comments

Family Business

Rising to the Challenge of Succession Planning in Family Firms

Finding a family successor is one of the greatest challenges for family firms but when done correctly, it will deliver value for the company over and above any other strategy.

Leadership & Organisations

What’s Keeping Women From the Corporate Heights?

Why women find it so difficult to access top jobs and why the change takes so long.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Turning Who You Are into What You Do

How others perceive our identity and actions may be very different to who we think we are and what we think we’re doing.
1 comment

Family Business

Now Hiring: Family Offices in Asia

As a vehicle for wealth management, the family office is still relatively new in Asia, but that’s now changing. Opportunities abound for managing this family wealth.

Leadership & Organisations

Hyper-Customised Learning for Your Organisation

One-size-fits-all education might soon be a thing of the past.

Responsibility

How the Lean Startup Approach Can Alleviate Poverty

Experimenting before plunging into major investments can pay off in the long run.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Unlock Your Leadership Passion

Roy Ling

Shedding your natural advantages can liberate you and unlock your passion.
3 comments

Economics & Finance

The Buyback Fund That Gives Back

A buyback fund we launched in 2011 has continued to grow in 2014 and is now open to small investors.
2 comments

Responsibility

Three Things Every Manager Should Know about Consumer Boycotts

LEGO’s recent experience shows how powerful boycotts can be.

Leadership & Organisations

Who Are the Stars?

High fliers are often a study in paradox. But what makes them so special?
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Best of 2014: Refocusing for Change

This year's most popular articles reflect a managerial yearning to cut distractions and destructive organisational behaviour to keep pace with the changes wrought by the digital revolution. But as ever, managers have to look inwards to look outwards and consider how they can maximise cross-cultural engagement to achieve efficiency and success. We wish you a happy holiday season!

Leadership & Organisations

Ten New Year’s Resolutions for CEOs

Ten core tenets for a successful global strategy in the coming year.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Introvert's Guide to Great Presenting

It is not about becoming someone you’re not, it’s about allowing yourself to become who you are truly capable of being.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Negotiating Deals From a Position of Powerlessness

When you are negotiating a deal it pays to have viable alternatives to fall back on – or at least that’s what most people think. New research suggests that being powerless can be liberating and help you achieve better deals.
1 comment

Family Business

Mapping the Future for Family Firms

Family firms are dominating global business today. To ensure longevity, they must phase their many challenges through long-term planning. The first step is to design a road map for the future governance of the firm and the family.

Leadership & Organisations

Pity the Super-rich

The road to success is paved with more than just money. Finding enduring things that matter is one way of avoiding wealth fatigue syndrome.
1 comment

Strategy

Turning Competition into Collaboration

Competition is healthy but winning can come at a hefty price. Sometimes the swiftest way forward is to replace conflict with collaboration.

Responsibility

Corruption: Can You Ignore It?

Corruption is the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development around the world. Governments, the private sector and NGOs are joining forces to fight this crime. The joint international campaign led by the United Nations designated December 9, 2014 as Anti-Corruption Day to encourage all businesses and employees to take a stand and say ‘No’ to corrupt practices.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Getting Your Team Members on the Same Page

You may think everyone knows who is in your team, and who isn’t, but think again.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Why do Corporate Boards Need more Women?

More women in the boardroom sounds fair, but will it make a difference?
2 comments

Responsibility

Should Business Schools Peddle Shareholder Value Maximisation?

We should teach our students that there are alternatives to the view that the purpose of business is shareholder value maximisation.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Debate: Should Business Schools Teach Students to Maximise Shareholder Value?

Since the financial crisis, the merits of shareholder value maximisation have been called into question. Is it the most effective path for sustainable business growth or should we consider alternatives?
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

European Identity: Strength or Weakness?

With Europe in a state of flux, is the continent heading for a national identity crisis?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Forecasting Ebola: Use Past Data or Spot the Difference?

Different approaches used by Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organisation to identify the threat of Ebola led to opposite conclusions. This highlights the role of organisational culture when addressing new and ambiguous developments.

Leadership & Organisations

11 Leadership Lessons from Alexander the Great

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Visionary, team builder, mentor, he shows us some timeless leadership lessons but also some glaring failures.
9 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Millennials Want to Lead. Are They Ready?

In the near future millennials will occupy every consequential leadership position in the world, be it in business, academia, government, or in the non-profit sector. Will they be ready to lead?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Mind Map of Blue Ocean Leadership

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

Releasing the ocean of untapped talent and energy of employees is something few companies can afford not to do. Visualising blue ocean leadership in comparison to conventional leadership practices will help you with implementation.
1 comment

Responsibility

The Five Dimensions of Responsible Leadership

A changing world demands a new leadership style emphasising societal impact and commitment to the common good.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Are You Ready to Lead Overseas?

Working in a foreign country can be a great experience, it can also be the biggest mistake of your life. The stress of living in an alien environment can shatter the most stable of relationships and leave you wondering just where your career is heading. Are you ready for the change?
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why I Connect With Strangers on LinkedIn

In online and real-world networking, the same principle applies: You never know when you might make a crucial connection.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Join Forces to Make Business Sustainable

Pragmatic collaborations can take sustainability from obligation to opportunity.

Leadership & Organisations

Sustainability Challenges: When Good Intentions Backfire

Sometimes business goals and community ideals just don’t fit. How far should you go to be sustainable and meet your company‘s corporate social responsibilities?
2 comments

Economics & Finance

Are Today’s Regulations Sowing the Seeds of the Next Crisis?

Ever greater regulatory complexity, coupled with an increasingly integrated world is making risk management ambiguous.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Take a Look at Yourself in the Leadership Mirror

To gain a better understanding of your leadership strengths and weaknesses, take a look at yourself through the eyes of others.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Importance of Leadership “Vision”

Vision is an intangible but critical asset for a CEO to drive high performance.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

A Conversation on Blue Ocean Leadership

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

INSEAD Knowledge interviews Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Music of Power

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. ---- Henry David Thoreau
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Could Your Leadership Style Be Influencing Bad Behaviour?

Rupert Murdoch says he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” to discover his employees were hacking phones. But did his leadership contribute to the practice?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Avoiding Culture Clashes When Making Decisions

Erin Meyer

Should your boss make the decisions for your group? Or should you, as a team member, have a say in them? The answer may depend on the norms of your cultural background. If you have a multicultural team, you can’t work effectively until you’ve addressed these differences in style.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Institutionalise Your New Blue Ocean Leadership Practices

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

After identifying what leadership acts and activities should be eliminated, reduced, raised and created to achieve a step change in leadership strength in your organisation, it’s time to institutionalise your new leadership profiles.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Serve in Order to Lead

Management progression should not be based on greater insulation from customers. Emerging leaders must spend time on the ground to build a true customer service culture.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to Develop and Select Your New Leadership Profiles

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

The Blue Ocean Leadership Grid can be used to identify what leadership acts and activities should be eliminated, reduced, raised, and created in pursuit of high impact at low cost.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Three Foundations of Effective CEOs

CEOs agree that there are some essential traits and competencies fundamental to success.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to See Your Current Leadership Reality

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

Without a common understanding of where leadership stands today and is falling short, a forceful case for change cannot be made.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Family Ownership Channels to Innovation

Massimo Massa

Family companies may have a conservative heritage, but new research suggests they can teach us a lot about innovation
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Four Pillars of Blue Ocean Leadership

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

To unleash employees’ untapped talent and energy, leaders need a strong repertoire of actions, not just better awareness and empathy.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Skandia Scandal: Whose Fault?

Reputations are valuable and easily tarnished even by association: a little care and attention can help.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Values of “Insightfully Aware” Leaders

The ability to identify and communicate values is critical to self-awareness and leadership development.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

To Inspire Employees, Speak Their Language

Most employees are going through the motions at their jobs. To re-engage them, leaders must translate organisational objectives into meaningful aims.
28 comments

Leadership & Organisations

From Blue Ocean Strategy to Blue Ocean Leadership

W. C. Kim, R. Mauborgne

The same way that Blue Ocean Strategy can create uncontested market space, Blue Ocean Leadership can unleash oceans of untapped talent and employee potential in organisations.
12 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Can You Learn to Be a CEO?

Is it time for a CEO school to train leaders for the top job or is it even a profession one can be schooled in?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

So You Think You Understand Emerging Markets?

Given the immense diversity and complexity of countries like India, it’s better to approach them as continents. Traditional assumptions about product development and segmentation should be left at the door.
1 comment

Strategy

The Power of Stakeholder Media

On-line forums of angry stakeholders have the power to destroy a unit of a multinational firm. Is anyone at your company listening to them?

Leadership & Organisations

Risk Oversight: Can Boards Get it Right?

As globalisation brings vulnerabilities from unknown directions, boards are faced with new risk management responsibilities. Are they up to it?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Four Principles for Making Better Decisions

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” says the proverb. Such good intentions are sometimes dashed by bad decisions, but we can improve our ability to choose the best path.

Family Business

The Secrets of Family Business Longevity

Clear and well defined family values, trust, networks and innovation are often the bedrock for success in family firms, but designing governance structures to face ownership and succession roadblocks are also essential for longevity.

Leadership & Organisations

Yves Carcelle: Man of Passion

The charismatic leader credited with turning Louis Vuitton into a global fashion powerhouse in his 23 years at the helm, passed away on Sunday August 31, 2014.

Leadership & Organisations

When a Negotiating Partner Gets Cold Feet

Just when you think you’re about to close the deal, your opposite pulls out. How can you draw them back to the table and still get a ‘yes’?

Leadership & Organisations

Becoming a High Impact Leader

To change organisations, leaders need to better understand their environment, distribute leadership to their teams and improve their self-awareness.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When Multi-Party Negotiations Hit Gridlock

”Green clubs” demonstrate the complex problems that can result from powerful companies and NGOs grouping together to improve environmental sustainability. But there are also lessons for achieving change.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

First Know Yourself, Then Your Team

Understanding how an organisation works is not enough. To be truly effective, a leader must understand the unconscious motivations of people around them.
11 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Rebuilding a Tainted Brand

Private equity fund investors have the ownership leverage to turn around companies via social and governance reform.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Female Superstars Are Often Overlooked

Men and women evaluate expertise in very different ways. This may not always be fair and can affect the effectiveness of team decisions.

Leadership & Organisations

The Power of Knowledge Sharing

Systems to manage the wealth of knowledge inside companies can help junior staff get a leg up in career advancement.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Can Your Firm Afford an Overconfident CEO?

Overconfident CEOs are innovative and fearless but are also prone to repeat mistakes.

Leadership & Organisations

Multicultural Teamwork: Accommodate Multiple Perspectives

Do you see the fish or the aquarium? There is a big difference between the thought patterns of specific and holistic thinkers that can undo a multicultural team’s effectiveness.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why Mindful Individuals Make Better Decisions

Mindfulness is practiced in board rooms from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. But just how much does it improve the quality of your decision-making?
4 comments

Strategy

Keeping a Cap on a Crisis

Gilles Hilary

A close look at certain aspects of your company’s procedures could prevent a minor incident turning into a full-blown disaster.

Leadership & Organisations

Driving Organisational Change Under Pressure

Intense pressure often calls for knee-jerk reactions. While firm responses are needed from leaders, they should resist the temptation to centralise control and stifle frontline ownership.

Leadership & Organisations

Standing Out: Is it Selfish?

Your unusual trait may be acceptable, even endearing, in some contexts, but in others it could place you at professional risk.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Art of Persuasion in a Multicultural World

Effective leadership often relies on your ability to persuade others. If you manage a team whose members come from different cultures, learning to adapt your persuasive techniques is crucial.
14 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How to be a great presenter and communicator

How to produce and deliver a winning presentation Part 5 (of 5): from You - being yourself, but who are you?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

“Nice Girls Don’t Negotiate” & Other Gender Myths

Women aren’t worse negotiators than men. It’s just that their negotiation strengths and weaknesses are little understood.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership in the Moment of Decision

Narayan Pant

Leaders collect vast amounts of knowledge, but if there is one area of expertise they must develop, it is the art of making the judgment call. Decision-making doesn’t come from models, it comes from practice.
3 comments

Responsibility

Will Tough New Anti-Corruption Laws Affect Your Company?

As governments tighten their anti-corruption legislation businesses are more exposed to inadvertent breaches. With penalties on the rise, is your company at risk?

Family Business

Luxury Wars: How Hermès Faced Down its Rival

Threatened by a sudden and hostile takeover, the Hermès family sought strength in unity and formed an elaborate defence to ensure the 130-year-old company remained under family control.

Leadership & Organisations

Inspiring Leadership Through a Detective Story

The best learning facilitators take their audience on a journey of investigation where everything is questioned.

Leadership & Organisations

European Board Directors Lag North American Counterparts

Survey of board directors in Europe uncovers startling shortcomings that could be undermining their effectiveness.

Leadership & Organisations

The Fallout of CEO Narcissism

Self-assured, charismatic and brazen, highly narcissistic CEOs can undermine strategic decision-making.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

In Memory of Jay Galbraith, Organisation Design Trailblazer

Jay R. Galbraith, who transformed the field of organisation design, and was the creator of the highly influential Star Model of organisation development passed away on April 8, 2014, at the age of 75.

Leadership & Organisations

From Negotiation to Leadership: Female Professionals as Change Agents

Women who feel their strengths are underappreciated can use a salary negotiation as an opportunity to address second-generation gender bias.

Leadership & Organisations

Reining in Overspending Football Clubs

European football’s administrative body is taking on clubs that live beyond their means, but this also leads to perverse incentives.

Leadership & Organisations

Harnessing the Power of Envy

Envy makes people destructive and ruins the innovation potential of great companies. It can, however, be harnessed to drive better performance.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Group Coaching: Tipping Points for Change

Executive teams with their different cultures, styles, agendas and often clashing egos, can be a hotbed for unrest. Sometimes even the most talented groups need a little help.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Are Bosses Becoming Extinct?

Hierarchy is often viewed as hindering innovation, but getting rid of hierarchy carries risks of its own. Savvy organisation design can help you strike a successful balance.
2 comments

Strategy

“Build, Borrow or Buy” Your Talent?

L. Capron, M. M. Tousif

Germany’s two leading football clubs are about to go head-to-head in the final of the German Cup. The talent management principles that got them there went well beyond just buying players.

Leadership & Organisations

What Makes a Good Chairman?

Good chairs know whom they are accountable to and it’s not shareholders or employees.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leading Across Cultures: Learn to Adapt Your Style

Whether you feel the best boss is more of a facilitator among equals or a director who leads from the front, to succeed in international business you need the flexibility to adapt your style to your cultural context.
9 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Research…in Motion

Tools that keep us active while we work could give companies much needed productivity gains and reduce the costs of keeping employees healthy.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Dream Journeys: Insights into the Executive Subconscious

Dreams can provide remarkable insights into the subconscious. Making sense of them can be a powerful problem-solving and inspirational tool assisting executives in recognising and addressing obstacles in their waking lives.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

In Defence of Teacher Learning

Students are not the only ones who grow and learn in the classroom. The MOOC conversation needs to be refocused to include the benefits to teachers.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

In Search of the “Alpha” CEO

CEOs are still scrambling to emerging markets, but they could be running the risk of overlooking exciting developed market growth opportunities.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When Convictions Blind Leaders

Many leaders are passionate individuals, often highly driven by deeply held philosophical convictions or values. This can make them very influential but can also cause them and others to lose sight of potential trip wires.
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Why Engineers Make Great CEOs

They’re detail-oriented, analytical and trained in systematic problem-solving. Engineers’ basic qualities make them good candidates for the top.
9 comments

Leadership & Organisations

What “Boss-less” Firms Can Teach Us

A handful of “flat” firms are inspiring industry leaders to rethink the organisational hierarchy. But what’s so special about these firms, and why now?
3 comments

Family Business

Welcome to the Family Business

Family businesses have to align their values and expectations with the external hires they bring in to help manage their companies. Incoming executives should also have the freedom to run with their own ideas.

Strategy

Is Europe Stuck in a Vicious Energy Cycle?

The shale gas boom in the United States has made domestic power producers cleaner and turned coal producers into major exporters. A weak Europe, anxious about fracking, is becoming reliant on cheap U.S. coal to fuel its power stations, trapping it in a vicious cycle.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Coaching Others: How a Mantra Helped Me Evolve

A mantra was the inflection point for realising my effectiveness and becoming a sought-after coach.

Economics & Finance

Is a Lack of Financial Acumen Putting Your Company at Risk?

Massimo Massa

The owners and directors on your company’s board may be skilled in foresight and implementing strategy but are they financially astute enough to understand the risk?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

State Owners: Inefficient or Value–Adding?

In the wake of the global financial crisis government stakeholders have shown they are more than capable of running profitable businesses. The key to success is strong governance.

Leadership & Organisations

Welcome to the Boardroom: Your Second Career

Executive managers who join corporate boards as directors are often unprepared for the transition and fall out of favour quickly. To make the shift successfully a strategic vision is needed.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Do You Think You're Reading Brain Food?

Are we being intellectually nourished by the vast amounts of witty and anecdotal content proliferating on the internet? Or are we just killing time?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

When to Speak Up, When to Shut Up

The norms of conducting international business are increasingly becoming standardised. But the behaviour of those around you is fed by cultural backgrounds.

Responsibility

The Moral Responsibility of Firms: For or Against?

When business behaves badly, who is held morally responsible? The firm or the individual?

Economics & Finance

Breaking Down Silos to Achieve Strategic Agility

Scotland’s civil service overhaul holds lessons for enhancing national competitiveness
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Are Companies Ready for the Female Talent Explosion?

Claudia Zeisberger

Demographic dividends are set to dwindle as the size of working age populations shrinks. Further female empowerment is needed for companies to plug the impending talent shortfalls.
1 comment

Economics & Finance

Should Investors Worry About the Political Affiliation of CEOs?

Evidence suggests that the political leanings of CEOs can impact the dividends their companies pay to shareholders.

Operations

CEO Pay-Performance Relationships

Debate about pay practices for corporate CEOs continues but is there really a disconnect between CEO compensation and performance?

Leadership & Organisations

Death: The Ultimate Motivator

Embracing the inevitability of death can help executives build meaning into their work and leave the legacies they desire.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Your Voice Is Your Key to Success

How to hone your vocal delivery to mesmerize your audience with confidence, style and passion.

Leadership & Organisations

The Multicultural Edge: Creativity, Trust and More Job Offers

Multicultural experiences are increasingly important for surviving and thriving in the diverse, interconnected world of the 21st century. While living in foreign countries is associated with increased creativity, we find that foreign experiences give individuals numerous other psychological and practical advantages.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Overcoming Challenges of Personal Change

Leaders have to learn and practice new leadership behaviours to overcome some of the habits that are limiting their current or future effectiveness. In the second of two articles, I examine the factors that can help senior executives overcome the challenges to developing new leadership capabilities.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Shedding the Shackles of Judgment for Better Decision-Making

Passing judgments of others and ourselves hampers our ability to learn. By asking questions differently, we can learn more and make better decisions.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Breaking Bad Leadership Habits

Leaders have to learn and practice new management techniques to overcome the habits that could be holding them back. In two articles, I examine the obstacles, and later, the factors that can help senior executives overcome them.
15 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Self-Secure Leaders and the Role of Attachment

Socially awkward leaders need to recognise and address dysfunctional attachment patterns that could be lurking obstacles to their top jobs.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Tell Your Boss About the Problem, if You Have One

Telling the boss about problems, rather than peers makes the most effective organisations.

Leadership & Organisations

Why I Brought Meditation into the Classroom

Business schools have a role to play in creating self-aware leaders, not just technically competent managers.
8 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Positive Leadership: Success Without Collateral Damage

"You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight Eisenhower
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Case for Two-Board Governance

Ludo Van der Heyden

As private shareholdings grow, is it time to consider a separate “shareholders” or “owners” board to give corporate boards and directors the space and the framing to do their jobs effectively?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Inclusive Leadership: Unlocking Diverse Talent

Gender diversity can be a polarising topic in big companies. Swiss Re holds some important lessons on how to foster a diverse environment with flexibility and inclusiveness for everyone.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Networking Is About Personal Style, Not Convention

It’s not all about how full your Rolodex is. There may be better ways you could be networking.

Leadership & Organisations

Can Chairmen Lead?

The characteristics of highly effective chairmen.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Finding Your Network Advantage

Companies have access to untapped value in their partnership networks, but many miss out on the available opportunities.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Making a Play in the Middle East

In the rapidly transforming, complex and often volatile landscape of Middle East media, flexibility is crucial.

Leadership & Organisations

Beating the Incumbents with a Fraction of Their Budget

The incredible success of a small anti-graft political party in India is a lesson in organisation design.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Role of Leaders in Helping Others Find Meaning at Work

"Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for." - Viktor E. Frankl
11 comments

Entrepreneurship

What Good is a Glue That Doesn’t Stick?

Is your company positioned to turn a failure into a billion-dollar success?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Meditate to Improve Performance

Randel Carlock

Deep breathing, savouring food and walking alone are some of the methods that can teach awareness and better one's well-being.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Don't Wait for Promotion: Make the Leadership Transition Now

Herminia Ibarra

INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour Herminia Ibarra, winner of the 2013 Thinkers50 "Leadership Award", discusses her big idea: why you need to make the leadership transition before you're promoted to a leadership role and why leaders become vulnerable to limited mindsets if they don't.

Leadership & Organisations

Chasing Lights

An INSEAD alum who made it big in online content in China has found enormous opportunities offline. Ironically, the same principles apply.

Leadership & Organisations

How Different Cultures Perceive Effective Leadership

Cultural differences matter in leadership and the most effective leaders embrace them.
7 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership and the Cultural Conundrum of Body Language

Leaders don’t all walk and talk the same. Staying true to one’s culture is integral to empowered leadership.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

When CEOs Should Let It Be

There is a time limit on CEO effectiveness. It’s better to quit while you’re ahead.

Leadership & Organisations

Can Computers Negotiate? Win-Win Negotiations in a Virtual World

Not only can they negotiate, they can also use win-win moves to help their human counterparts yield more value for both parties.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Dean Ilian Mihov on INSEAD's Thinkers50 Nominees

Ilian Mihov

INSEAD's Dean, Ilian Mihov, explains how the school stays at the vanguard of global managerial knowledge creation with a resolute focus on providing an unparalleled level of diversity in the classroom.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Big Fracking Surprise

It shouldn't surprise researchers that underdog wildcatters, not Big Oil, were the main drivers of the shale gas revolution.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD's Global Thought Leaders: Morten Hansen

Achieving leadership greatness means leveraging luck and navigating between extremes, says INSEAD Professor of Entrepreneurship Morten Hansen in an interview with INSEAD Knowledge. The transcript is below.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

The Smartphone Innovation Curve

Samsung's curved-screen smartphones are a hot trend, but innovation may come from unlikely places.

Leadership & Organisations

Dealing With a Sudden Stop

Economists disagree about what kept the U.S. from becoming Greece during the financial crisis.

Leadership & Organisations

Ben Bernankepoulos

What if the United States had been a member of the Euro area?

Leadership & Organisations

Conquering Gender Bias

A lurking “second-generation gender bias” is slowing women down by dissecting their behaviour and hobbling their advancement. Companies will have to switch tactics to take on this more subtle phenomenon.

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD's Global Thought Leaders: Herminia Ibarra

INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour Herminia Ibarra, winner of the 2013 Thinkers50 "Leadership Award", discusses effective leadership styles and why managers need to be fluent in several styles.

Leadership & Organisations

Think Positive for Higher Profits

For managers, over-optimism can boost firms’ profitability and market value and improve company welfare.
1 comment

Family Business

How China's Family Businesses Can Bridge the Generation Gap

If family businesses are to grow stronger in contemporary China, generations and cultures will have to compromise.

Strategy

INSEAD's Global Thought Leaders: Laurence Capron

Laurence Capron

INSEAD professor of strategy Laurence Capron, nominated for the 2013 Thinkers50 "Strategy Award," explains the three factors preventing business leaders from making crucial changes.

Leadership & Organisations

INSEAD's Global Thought Leaders: Gianpiero Petriglieri

Gianpiero Petriglieri

INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour Gianpiero Petriglieri, nominated for the Thinkers50 2013 "Future Thinker Award," comments on the crisis of trust facing today's leaders, and how to resolve it.

Leadership & Organisations

How to Break Through a Career Impasse

Many of the successful managers and professionals who come back to business school at mid-career are looking for more than honing their leadership skills. Many are stuck in their careers. They’re looking for direction and support for the changes they long to make in the near future. But, their networks just keep dragging them back to the past—and they don’t even realize it.

Strategy

Is Losing Talent Always Bad? Management Lessons from Prada

Andrew Shipilov

The recent departure of Marc Jacobs from Louis Vuitton might seem like terrible news for the company. But if you look a little more closely at the fashion industry you’ll find that turning over your talent isn’t always a bad thing.

Strategy

Head above the Rest

As the recession in Europe drags on, many companies are learning to rise-up against the downward trend. Two of the winners of this year’s Industrial Excellence Awards are highly innovative companies that are supplying customers with new products they never thought that they would need. How do they do it?

Operations

Mentor or Martyr? Beware the Rescuer Trap

Are you addicted to helping others or is your mentor relationship creating unhealthy levels of interference? Perhaps you’ve fallen victim to the Rescuer Syndrome.
4 comments

Career

Get Out of the Way!

How to set structures to foster innovation and creativity, then step back.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Six Ways to Grow Your Job

In today’s resource-constrained environment, many of us are delivering 120% on the current demands of our job—but devoting little time to developing ourselves further or positioning ourselves for a future move. As one of my executive MBA students recently told me, “I know that I have to carve out more time to think strategically about my business, but all my peers are executing to hilt and I don’t want to fall behind.”
2 comments

Strategy

INSEAD's Global Thought Leaders: Ideas With Power

Update: Herminia Ibarra, INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour won the 2013 Thinkers50 Leadership Award and was ranked number 9 on the organisation's ranking of top management thinkers. W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, INSEAD Professors of Strategy and Management took second place in the top 50 thinkers ranking. INSEAD Professors Hal Gregersen, Gianpiero Petriglieri and Erin Meyer were all placed on the Thinkers50 Radar.

Leadership & Organisations

Europe: 8 out of 50

The Economist writes about the 50 most valued companies in the world, where Europe has about 8 (Switzerland and the UK have 4 of those 8). American firms pushed ahead with the recovery: European giants looked good when America slumped but now fall back in the pack.

Operations

Meditate for More Profitable Decisions

It’s a practice rooted in Hinduism and adopted by beatniks seeking spiritual guidance. Now evidence shows meditation can improve business decisions and save your company from expensive investment mistakes.
6 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Google, the Network Company: From Theory to Practice

In a fast-paced, rapidly evolving business environment, a networked, collaborative structure can give an organisation a competitive edge.

Strategy

Preserving Innovation Flair

Budding start-ups often aim at the big prize of either going public or getting acquired, but both avenues can hurt innovation. What’s the best path to growth while maintaining your firm’s creative flair?

Leadership & Organisations

Use Catalytic Questioning to Solve Significant Problems

For almost twenty years, I have refined a systematic approach to uncovering the right questions—those that start to unlock entirely different solutions and perspectives—with hundreds of teams around the world, from the C-suite to the shop floor.

Strategy

Growth at Any Price?

J. Kim, C. Howells

When firms are desperate to grow and to please shareholders who demand growth, they take desperate measures such as overpaying for acquisitions and put themselves on the road to long-term hardship.

Leadership & Organisations

Size Matters

Does CSR only apply to sizable corporations?

Leadership & Organisations

Women at Work: When Corporate Support Backfires

Family-friendly corporate policies help women to stay in the workforce. But perversely they may also be keeping women from advancing into the executive suite
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Athena in Pin Stripes

The business world is a place for the competitive and the self-reliant. But this is about to change according to the author of “The Athena Doctrine.”
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Luxury’s Veteran Leader

First CEO of Gucci, now Chairman of Tom Ford International. Domenico De Sole has an eye for style, stores and the bottom line.

Career

The Rise of Multicultural Managers

Many multinational companies have hidden, unrecognised multicultural gems within their ranks. To find these and get the most from their unique skills means taking the time and trouble to carefully develop and deploy multicultural managers in critical positions.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Perils of Short-Term Thinking

It’s hard to ignore shareholder demands for quarterly earnings miracles. But too often what looks like “success” today can inhibit a company’s competitiveness tomorrow.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Forgiveness as a Business Tool

Forgiveness can make us a better person but does it make a better leader? An eye for an eye for an eye for an eye…ends in making everyone blind. (Mahatma Ghandi)
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Madness and the Delicate Art of Exercising Power in Negotiating

Unpredictability can be an asset in making people do what you want as a leader and a negotiator.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Ferragamo: New Twist to Classic Design

Over the past two years the classic Italian luxury brand has updated its image, listed on the stock exchange, brought in an outsider as CEO and opened a slew of boutiques in Asia. Is the strategy working?
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

COL Wines: The Vintage Born at INSEAD

How a group of INSEAD Executive Education graduates decided it was worth travelling halfway around the world to make wine and drink it together.
1 comment

Strategy

Social Media in B2B Marketing: Publish or Perish!

Social Media can be an important part of B2B strategy. But to make an impact within the content ecosystem, you have to have a message and move fast.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Is There Life After an MBA?

Whatever you expected when you entered the degree programme, it all looks different ten years hence. An INSEAD case study draws lessons on career success and personal fulfilment from the lives and work of the MBA class of 2002.
2 comments

Entrepreneurship

A.G. Lafley’s Innovation Skills Will Weather P&G’s Storm

Almost 20 years ago, I interviewed Procter & Gamble (PG) Chief Executive Officer A.G. Lafley at company headquarters in Cincinnati for a book project focused on what it takes to become a great global leader. I was looking forward to talking with Lafley because former Chairman John Pepper had endorsed him as one of the most effective global leaders at P&G.
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

Assembling A Creative Team

A shared history of creative interactions can be the key to unleash innovation.

Responsibility

Winning the Hearts of Communities

Can companies influence communities to their advantage? The answer is yes, if they engage the community and demonstrate mutual benefits at an early stage.

Leadership & Organisations

LinkedIn: The Content Exchange

Since going public in 2011, the professionals’ social network has gone from a networking site to a must-have tool for recruiters. Will adding content and big data enhance its professional value?

Leadership & Organisations

From Banker to Media Mogul: RAI Broadcasting’s New Chief

Italy’s state broadcaster looks to the private sector to haul itself into the 21st century. But can Luigi Gubitosi create programming; update technology and replenish the coffers? He thinks so.

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate Governance in a Developing World

As they shift towards more market-based economies, Arab companies can no longer afford to neglect demands for greater accountability and transparency in the boardroom.

Responsibility

Sir Ronald Cohen: Venture Capitalist to Social Capitalist

Sir Ronald Cohen is one of the founding fathers of modern venture capitalism. Now he is advocating a revolutionary new approach to narrow the widening gap between rich and poor, and wants investors to replace the “invisible hand” with the “invisible heart”.

Responsibility

Is Social Enterprise Sustainable?

Social Enterprise first evolved in the developing world. Now the business models and social metrics may be going mainstream.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Down to Basics

How do you manage 250,000 employees in 23 countries on six continents working in six industries, all still emerging from the Soviet mould?

Career

Networking in the Middle East

Competition for jobs in the Middle East is heating up and job candidates are finding that making contact on the ground is the only way to stay ahead of the pack.
1 comment

Strategy

Disseminating Strategy: A User’s Guide

Your new strategy looks good on paper, it looks good in the executive suite. But what does it take for the work force to get it?
3 comments

Career

Making the Change

Forget planning and networking...it's a sure-fire way to remain stuck!
5 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Working From Home: The End of an Era?

Marissa Mayer’s controversial decision to bring Yahoo! employees back to the office could yet prove to be the right one.
10 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Power Boosters: How to Land That Job When You Think You Can’t

To land that dream job, adopt a mindset that signals power, even if you don’t feel so powerful.
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Battle for the Boardroom

A rising tide of public and shareholder discontent over executive pay packets, corporate accountability and responsibility are forcing boards to be more transparent, diverse and independent. Asia is also catching on fast.
3 comments

Entrepreneurship

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apollo 11. He’s Still Innovating

On July 16, 1969 at 9:32 a.m. EST, five F-1 engines lifted the 6.2 million-pound Saturn V rocket into space. (As a reference point, that’s the equivalent of tossing about 400 full-grown elephants into the air at once.) Jeff Bezos, who was 5 years old at the time, was watching—intently. Four days later, on July 20, 1969 at 4:18 p.m. EST, the young Bezos was mesmerized by the words “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed” when the lunar module gently set three men onto the moon.

Leadership & Organisations

Arab Flair for International Women's Day

Arab women are educated, determined and have increasing government support. What’s standing in their way? A report from the INSEAD seminar in Abu Dhabi.

Entrepreneurship

Are Accountants and CFOs Killing Innovation?

What can you do when penny-pinchers get in the way of your disruptive ideas to make necessary, often disruptive, changes in your company?
11 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Executive Coaching from Prince Hal

GUEST COMMENTARY: An increasing number of executives are turning to Shakespeare for advice on how to run their businesses. Nigel Roberts reflects on the Bard’s stories, myths & archetypes.
4 comments

Entrepreneurship

CIO: Enabling Innovation

Globalisation has changed the rules of the game and it takes a certain kind of person to play by them. But where do you find these people and how do you get them on your team?
1 comment

Leadership & Organisations

The Abaya in the Boardroom

With strong role models and new opportunities, Arab women are making their mark in big business.
1 comment

Economics & Finance

Extreme Focus and the Success of Germany’s Mittelstand

In a recent post on Harvard Business Review bloggers network, we discuss the extreme focus business model of Germany’s famed Mittlestand:
2 comments

Leadership & Organisations

How Female Leaders Should Handle Double-Standards

IMF head Christine Lagarde tells a story about a woman leader she met who took over at a tough moment in her country’s history and resolved to be different. They had to cut the deficit and she wanted to set standards by personal example. When she travelled around the country, she took a small entourage of five cars. But the women she met in the villages asked her why only five cars when the men before her travelled with twenty-five. Stereotypes have been set and cast in stone, explained Lagarde, making women feel they have to act like men to be heard. “Keep your five cars,” Lagarde advised her, “dare the difference. Sometimes our five cars are better than their twenty-five.”

Leadership & Organisations

Are You Becoming “Clique-ish”?

New hires often seek professional advice from colleagues of the same nationality or background as a means of settling into a new environment. But this reliance on compatriots can work against you.

Economics & Finance

Analyst Forecasts: How to Read Between the Lines

Accurate financial information is critical to investors. But is consistency more important than accuracy? And what’s the trade-off for investors?

Operations

Don’t Waste Your ICT Investments

Are you ready for cloud computing? Before opening your wallet, take a good hard look at what your ICT infrastructure is really like.

Strategy

Making Tyres for the Cognoscenti

Pirelli tyres mean race cars, sports cars and glamour but the man driving the company understands that to be number one on the fast track, you have to watch the landscape as well.

Leadership & Organisations

Deviant Leaders: Falling Hard

Can top bosses be rude, abusive, egocentric and fiscally irresponsible, as long as the bottom line looks good?

Leadership & Organisations

Getting Stuck Can Help You Grow

After an accident, there is often a second of calm when you realize that you are seriously hurt. Memory captures the scene in fine detail, as if you’re hovering outside your skin, before pain and confusion pull you right back in.

Leadership & Organisations

The Psychopath in the C-Suite

Nicholas Bray

Corporate genius or psychopath? It’s a thin line that divides them. Most people who work in companies run afoul of such a person at least once during their career. Some rise to astonishing heights, and they can cause enormous damage. Dealing with them can be tricky, but here are some tips.
12 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Morons and Oxymorons: Undermining Women in Leadership

Fifty years after legal changes in many countries ended discrimination on the basis of sex, many women are still being held back in their careers by stereotypical prejudices about the qualities required for leadership and their ability to fill leadership roles.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Transform 2013 by Turning Goals into Questions

Transitions are ideal times to create multi-faceted change in our lives. Moving across four different countries and three different continents during the past seven years has made that truth crystal clear for my family. The start of a new year can give equal cause for recalibrating a life. Many of us have set a few goals during the past couple of weeks, and a few of us have set many goals. But we all know that goals set are not necessarily goals met. At best 20 percent of us will succeed at achieving our objectives. To buck those odds, try this trick: Set a question goal instead of a statement goal.

Leadership & Organisations

Her Key to Efficiency: Arrive Late, Leave Early

A COUPLE of years ago, a well-intentioned friend, hearing me describe the horrors of my commute in Paris, said I should decide when I wanted to see my son each day: in the morning or at night, but not both.

Leadership & Organisations

Obama’s Inauguration and Why We Still Need Rituals

I have a picture somewhere of my son and I playing in the living room the day of Barack Obama’s first inauguration as 44th President of the United States. My son was five months old, the ceremony on the TV behind us. I had left work early to watch it. That night, we wrote about it in his baby book.

Leadership & Organisations

Can Companies Both Do Well and Do Good?

By Morten T. Hansen, Herminia Ibarra, and Urs Peyer Many management thinkers argue that it is no longer enough to do well financially; companies also need to improve the well-being of (or at least not harm) the communities in which they operate, the environment, and their employees. (See, for example, “Creating Shared Value,” by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer.) That’s the good news. The bad news is that stellar performance on both dimensions is no common or easy feat.

Leadership & Organisations

Meet The World’s Top CEOs

It’s not just quarterly earnings that determine success. INSEAD’s second ranking of the top CEOs in the world measures the long-term, sustainable success of some 3,000 global executives at more than 1,800 companies.

Strategy

Do Your Negotiating Techniques Create Value?

It’s no longer a game of hard-ball. Today’s negotiations are about more than just money.
7 comments

Entrepreneurship

It’s Not Just German Engineering

The German luxury car market has not lost speed through the recession, despite high production costs and slack demand in Europe. The secret of success lies not just under the hood but in the boardroom and the research labs.

Leadership & Organisations

Finding the Job of Your Life

Let’s face it. We all think about it. At times we think of little else — even if only rarely and in certain settings do we feel free to admit it. The conversation often begins furtively, the question murmured as if slightly shameful or out of place. How can I get more of it at work?

Leadership & Organisations

How to Succeed in Business

Have fun, hold onto the stair rail, and communicate well – advice from the executive who transformed formerly sleepy U.K.-based engineering firm AMEC plc into one of the best-performing companies on the London Stock Exchange in just six years.

Leadership & Organisations

The EU's Boardroom Quota Battle Is Over, But Women Cannot Yet Rest

INSEAD Professors respond to the passing of a European law that requires women to represent 40 percent of company board members by 2020.
3 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Are Business Schools Clueless or Evil?

The last decade has been a one of soul-searching for business schools worldwide. Since the collapse of Enron, through the financial crisis, to the insider trading and LIBOR scandals, the question just keeps recurring: How did those institutions of higher learning, whose claim is to develop business leaders, influence the conduct of leaders who let so many people down?

Leadership & Organisations

Study: Women Get Fewer Game-Changing Leadership Roles

Many studies have shown that the representation of women in the senior ranks has been virtually unchanged for years, despite considerable organizational investment in talent management systems. Because leadership development begins early in careers, could inequality in development opportunities explain the gender gap that also emerges so early?

Leadership & Organisations

Lessons from Obama’s Campaign Victory

Charles Galunic

Government and business organizations are different in important ways (for instance, one of them is not a democracy), but a political campaign has some useful lessons for leaders of any organization. While the balance of power in democratic governments can lead to deadlock and painfully slow consensus building (in their steady state), the “simplicity” of elections (competing bodies, a deadline, a vote, a decision) is, in a strange way, closer to the reality of business organizations (at least those in flux and who face choices which cannot be made through pure hierarchical fiat).

Leadership & Organisations

The Wise Leader

Smart leaders steer their organisations to victory, but wise leaders are needed to keep them on top in a dynamic world.

Leadership & Organisations

Struggle In The Boardroom

The prospect of mandatory quotas for women on European company boards seems to have receded, but European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding’s campaign for quotas has pushed the issue of gender diversity firmly to the forefront of public debate. What happens next will depend as much on corporate leaders as on politicians.
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Strategy

Corporate Growing Pains: Build, Borrow or Buy?

Doing the wrong thing really well in growing your business could lose you your competitive advantage. Here’s how to avoid the “implementation trap”.

Entrepreneurship

Looking a Leader, Becoming a Leader: Assertiveness versus Deference

The third presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney had a one-on-one format that was in part a dialogue of the two, in part each of them addressing the camera and the moderator. In a dialogue format they get a chance to show how they address each other.

Leadership & Organisations

Taking the Leap: Two Moments of Innovation Truth

Though I’m not a fan of overdosed caffeine and sugar-laden concoctions, I give complete kudos to Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team for their successful sky dive—or rather, space dive—from beyond the edge of the Earth and back, breaking the sound barrier in the process. From start to finish, Felix and his team pushed the envelope by taking experimentation to the extreme.

Leadership & Organisations

Women on boards: No quotas...yet

EU to vote on controversial issue next month; INSEAD corporate governance leaders weigh in.
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Leadership & Organisations

Moving Around Without Losing Your Roots

Big questions always strike unexpectedly, when our guard is down. I was watching my toddlers splash in the pool last summer when a fellow dad plunged me into revisiting the meaning of home in a globalized world.

Economics & Finance

Could Women’s Rights be Sacrificed for Peace in Afghanistan?

The eventual withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan raises fears of what will happen next? Afghanistan’s female MP, Shinkai Kharokhail, hopes women won’t lose their hard-won gains.

Leadership & Organisations

How Social Media Can Boost Profits

Social Media can work wonders in internal corporate communications and boost the bottom line, as long as the message comes from the heart.
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Leadership & Organisations

The Art of Career Development

Do you want a great career? Build it like an artist. Gianpiero Petriglieri, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, explains how.

Leadership & Organisations

Why Command-and-Control Leadership Is Here to Stay

Travelling through Zurich airport, one billboard always catches my eye. The ad for IWC luxury watches says “Engineered for men who don’t need a copilot.”

Leadership & Organisations

The Perils Of Being Groomed For Leadership

A few weeks before the end of 2010, Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, surprised the financial world by naming a virtual unknown, Todd Combs, as his likely successor. As always happens with Buffett’s pronouncements, experts and commentators went haywire trying to decipher the reticent mogul’s rationale, poring over Combs’ background and the performance of the hedge fund he started and managed for the last five years. Most of the questions they raised were variations on a common theme. Can he possibly replace such an iconic leader?

Leadership & Organisations

Coming to Terms with your Dark Side

Excessive egotism and low self-awareness are the psychological profiles associated with the ‘dark side’. In fact, they also tend to be linked with scandalous incidents that mar the reputations of high-profile leaders. This article identifies the characteristics of the dark side, helps understand their roots and gives direction on how to channel them.
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Leadership & Organisations

Sex and the Working Mom

At one of the companies with which I work there is a legendary story about work life balance.

Leadership & Organisations

Who can teach leadership?

Mel’s hand went up precipitously and unexpectedly, like thunder on a clear day. I had barely begun introducing the leadership course I would be teaching over the coming weeks. “I have a question, Professor.” I gave him the floor.

Economics & Finance

Merger Control and Practice in the BRIC Countries vs. the EU and the US: Review Thresholds

Karel Cool

Written by Nicolas Harlé, Philippe Ombregt and Karel Cool With more than 90% of global GDP growth coming from the rapidly developing economies,[2] companies from around the world are targeting these markets for future expansion. The BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) cluster has been a major magnet as it represents about 25% of global GDP and over 60% of global growth.

Economics & Finance

Banksters: The scandals continue

Four years into the economic crisis, a Harris poll of U.S. adults in 2012 found that 70 percent believed “most people on Wall Street would be willing to break the law if they believed that they could make a lot of money and get away with it”. Despite efforts to regulate better behaviour in banking, there is ample evidence that little has changed.

Economics & Finance

How to succeed when the market shrinks

When the odds of expanding in its home market proved slim, the Berlin Börse (Berlin Stock Exchange) used new EU laws and ventured out into the world. Today, it’s a mecca for small European investors and companies looking for an easier European listing. But can growth continue as trading volumes across the continent contract?

Leadership & Organisations

What Do Managers Do at Work?

Recently Thomas Friedman in the New York Timesargued for “the rise of popularism,” and the Wall Street Journal touted the same with its headline, “Who’s the boss? There isn’t one.” After reading these articles, my mind raced back 25 years to my first encounter with a few maverick companies attempting to manage without managers and a subsequent Saturday morning conversation while watching Yogi Bear cartoons with my three-year old son.

Strategy

Euronews: Confronting the revolution

Can a consortium of state broadcasters win the war for news viewers in the age of social media?

Leadership & Organisations

Meet China’s top executives

Forget the stereotype of a conservative, collective leadership. China’s top corporate heads are competitive, diverse individuals with a global focus…and very few MBAs.

Leadership & Organisations

Dream your way to success

It’s not all about business plans and spreadsheets and getting to the next goal. The picture of real success is at least partly in your mind.

Leadership & Organisations

Top five sales negotiation mistakes

Stop talking, start listening. Can tweaking your approach help clinch the deal? Picture the scene: it’s late in your fiscal year and you’re in the final stages of negotiating a big sale. If you land this one, you will exceed your annual sales target by 25 percent and your bonus will double. No doubt about it – you want this one.
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Strategy

Are you creating value for your firm?

It’s a tough world out there and only firms that succeed in creating value will survive in the long-term. The key is to focus on what your customers really want.

Leadership & Organisations

Top 50 Ranking of China’s Business Leaders Exposes Common Myths

“A general who fears to unsheathe his sword is not a good general,” says Mr. Li Jiaxiang, Chairman of Air China from 2004 to 2008 and the #1 performing corporate leader in China according to our new ranking (just published in the Harvard Business Review China and the centerpiece for the magazine’s launch events in Beijing and Shanghai).

Leadership & Organisations

Be inspired

Creative inspiration comes from the most unexpected places. Sometimes where you expect it the least. This was my experience at a high school graduation that I recently attended. The programme had all the usual format of these symbolic events: a warm glow, certificates, the band, photos, the Principal’s speech and an unknown guess speaker.

Entrepreneurship

An Online Travel Startup Grows Up

M. Reddy, A. Bajpai

India-based iXiGO launched five years ago in a nascent online travel sector that’s since mushroomed into one of India’s most competitive companies. Now the company has received a new round of venture-backed funding. What next?

Leadership & Organisations

Corruption: A piecemeal solution

As Russia struggles to shrug off a corrupt legacy from its Soviet past, businesses are taking a step-by-step approach to managing the “informal practices” putting their companies at risk

Economics & Finance

Business and the euro

The euro has become a political football these days, but some of the players in that game have businesses to run. What is their end game?

Economics & Finance

Forget austerity? Not completely, say economists

Lack of trust, lack of confidence, lack of visibility. Which way out of the world economic recession? Cut back or spend more or…?

Economics & Finance

Don’t just pine for economic recovery! Roll up your sleeves!

Despite its electoral promises, France’s new left-wing government is unlikely to have much leeway for spending the country’s way out of its economic doldrums. Instead, what France needs is a dose of more positive thinking at every level of society, according to French business consultant Emmanuel Bonnet.

Leadership & Organisations

Are You An Innovative Entrepreneur?

Pop quiz: How do you define an entrepreneur? The typical answer—which is technically correct—is that an entrepreneur is anyone who starts a business. That includes folks who start lawn care businesses, dry cleaners, and yogurt shops.

Leadership & Organisations

The Euro Crisis – Failing to Learn from Corporate Contexts

Reading the news these past several months on the Euro crisis may have you believe that the difficulties are the result of leaders navigating in completely unchartered territory. The EU experiment is a great challenge because it is so remarkably unique. This isn’t really true, or at least the part about not having examples to help charter the territory. In fact there are many relevant analogies from business organizations.

Leadership & Organisations

Here’s to the Crazy Ones

If “the quickest way to make a millionaire out of billionaire is to buy an airline,” as Sir Richard Branson once remarked, then what does that mean for billionaires who build commercial space airlines? Ask Branson or Jeff Bezos, because they are the crazy ones: They not only dream; they dream big.

Leadership & Organisations

To Close the Gender Gap, Focus on Assignments

A new McKinsey study (PDF) reports statistically what we already knew from personal experience: that mid-career and senior women tend to be found disproportionally in staff jobs, or “pink ghettos,” relative to men.

Leadership & Organisations

The Best Path to Success is Your Own

If you’re wondering what to do next in your career, you’re hardly alone. The debate about where and how we may best feed our hunger for mastery, service, prestige, approval, safety, achievement — whatever we’re after — is fiercer than ever.

Leadership & Organisations

Who's minding the store?

As more scandals rock the financial world, stakeholders are beginning to look closely at who sits in the boardroom, and why.

Leadership & Organisations

Managing confrontation in multicultural teams

Conflict and debate are considered essential to better decision making in some cultures, while in others, it’s downright rude. How do you bridge the cultural divide?

Leadership & Organisations

The new consumers

BRIC nationals have money, status, information, a nascent sense of luxury lifestyle…now they are coming of age.

Leadership & Organisations

Trouble at the top?

“Australians don’t trust Qantas management” was the leading head line of a recent national poll. The fact that the unions were unhappy with the way management conducted the industrial dispute is no surprise.
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Leadership & Organisations

Crush the “I’m Not Creative” Barrier

Did you know that if you think you are creative, you’re more likely to actually be creative? This surprising fact pops up again and again in our research. In our database of over 6,000 professionals who have taken the Innovator’s DNA self & 360 assessments, people (entrepreneurs and managers alike) who “agree” with the survey statement “I am creative” consistently deliver disruptive solutions — by creating new businesses, products, services, and processes that no one has done before. They see themselves as creative and act that way.

Leadership & Organisations

Steve Jobs: Speaking from the wilderness

Editor’s Note: Nearly 16 years ago to the day, I interviewed Steve Jobs at an investment conference in San Francisco, California. He was “out of favour,” in-between his bifurcated tenure at the helm of Apple, revolutionising movie-making as chairman and CEO of Pixar. In retrospect, we see that Jobs brought his Apple technology approach to the movies and took movie marketing with him back to Apple…

Leadership & Organisations

Turn Your Career into a Work of Art

Whose life am I living? I’m sure you ask yourself that kind of question from time to time. What am I really good at? What is the purpose of my work? These are not new questions. Sooner or later, we all seek answers to them.

Leadership & Organisations

Islamic feminism: Unbinding the ties

Can you be liberal, feminist and Muslim at the same time? Malaysian activist Marina Mahathir says “Yes.”

Leadership & Organisations

ASML - Owning the market with new technologies

Ever wonder how big companies in cutting edge industries manage to lead the market? The Dutch semiconductor equipment maker – ASML– is convinced it has found the solution in risk management. This has helped it rise to the top of the industry for photolithography machines. But is there more to market leadership than simply spreading the risk?

Leadership & Organisations

The secret of success: Do your homework!

To err is human but how often do we get it wrong? More often than we realise, according to new research, and the biggest mistake corporations make is not being prepared.

Leadership & Organisations

From Fiat to heart valves

Scott Hammen

How one CEO took part of a huge Italian industrial complex and turned it into a high-tech healthcare company…

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership today: An inward journey

Executive training may not make a leader out of a follower, but it certainly can make a promising leader better... provided he's willing to put in the effort and take a good long look into his soul.
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Entrepreneurship

It’s time to diversify diversity

Diversity matters—in teams and companies. In fact, recent research at McKinsey mirrors other studies of top management diversity around the world. McKinsey found that U.K., French, German, and U.S. companies ranking in the top quartile of executive-board diversity, as measured by gender and international differences, delivered returns on equity at least 50 percent higher and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margins 14 percent higher than those in the bottom quartile. Not bad results, but they could be even better.

Leadership & Organisations

Are rankings worthwhile?

The ranking of companies and business leaders has become something of a cottage industry in recent years. But what do they tell us about anything? Quite a bit, it turns out. You just have to learn to read between the numbers.

Responsibility

Can big business partner with NGOs?

What do companies delivering bottled soda have in common with NGO’s delivering food to a drought area? Quite a lot, it seems. Whether for commercial or humanitarian reasons, it all boils down to logistics.

Leadership & Organisations

Managing Confrontation in Multicultural Teams

Everyone knows that a little confrontation from time to time is constructive, right? And the classic business literature confirms it. Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, for example, discusses at length how to achieve the right amount of confrontation for ultimate team effectiveness — and concludes that fear of conflict is one of the five major barriers to success. It was a bestseller in the U.S.

Entrepreneurship

Find a Job Using Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovators ask the right questions, observe the world like anthropologists, network for novel ideas, and experiment to make things work. (For a more detailed look at these skills, see The Innovator’s DNA).

Leadership & Organisations

When Global Cosmopolitans ask, “should I stay or should I go?”

They often ask the question when they are feeling underappreciated at work. Since they are not afraid to change, many global organizations are losing some of their best.

Economics & Finance

What’s wrong with banking regulation today?

Indebtedness is both a consumer and a financial industry problem. Regulatory bodies think more banking regulations will fix the problem. INSEAD Professor of Banking and Finance Jean Dermine is not so sure.

Leadership & Organisations

Putting Arab women in the picture

Three Emirati marketing graduates recognised from their vast network of contacts that many women faced the same challenge: they were “time poor but mind active”, and searching for ways to contribute to the region’s social and their own personal and professional, growth.

Strategy

Bumpy roads in the sky

Rapid economic growth and an increasing demand for travel should make it easy to make money in the airline business in India. But it’s not. One private company explains how it’s navigating through the clouds.

Leadership & Organisations

Reversal of Fortunes – Nokia and Apple

Charles Galunic

Some images are incredibly powerful. It takes just a few moments to capture the message behind the graph below. This graph measures the industry profit shares of major mobile phone vendors over the past four years, effectively since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. Along the diagonal is the story of some up and down, but largely stable, movements of competitors like RIM and Samsung. But the big story is the dramatic reversal of fortune for Nokia and Apple.

Entrepreneurship

Dark Shirts and Symbolic Management

One of the most recent news stories on Apple features a picture of CEO Tim Cook addressing an audience dressed in a dark shirt. It made me look twice because I initially thought he was wearing the same kind of turtleneck sweater made famous by Steve Jobs (and designed by Issey Miyake).

Leadership & Organisations

Can we stop businesses from behaving badly?

Stakeholders often have conflicting interests, at least in the short run. How do you trade off their welfare and still “do the right thing”?

Leadership & Organisations

"The Awakening of the People"

Olivier Giscard d'Estaing looks back to reflect on the future.

Leadership & Organisations

Help Women Take the Stage

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, has been speaking out a lot lately about subtle dynamics that hold women back from reaching senior roles in business. Her TED talk and Barnard commencement speech went viral. Lean in, she says to women, take your place at the table, seize the stage.

Leadership & Organisations

Yielding to earnings pressure

Javier Gimeno

A triumphant Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, appeared in the Financial Times last week. Given the bleak state of the European airline industry, you might wonder what was the cause of celebration. Ryanair had announced a pre-tax profit of €15.5 million for the third quarter, against analyst consensus estimates of €16 million net loss. This lifted their full-year profit guidance, and share prices went up accordingly.

Leadership & Organisations

Strategy and Organization in Sony

Henrich Greve

Sony now has designated its next chief executive – Kazuo Hirai, whose credentials include running the US game division and then turning the overall game division back from a precipice of potentially enormous losses. With Sony’s long slide from leadership in multiple businesses (think TVs, portable music, and games), there is a lot of second-guessing of their strategies so far.

Leadership & Organisations

Is “Command and Collaborate” the new leadership model?

The theme at Davos this year was “The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.” One of the models up for discussion was leadership. Panels with titles like “Leadership Under Pressure” and “New Leadership Models from China” abounded.

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate governance: managing the known unknowns

Raising corporate governance and oversight standards is easier in theory than in practice. How should companies balance increased supervision with efficient execution? INSEAD professor Ludo Van der Heyden, tells us how.

Leadership & Organisations

There’s no place like where?

The more you move around, the harder it is to know where home is – but the more important it feels to have roots. The international communities of Asia offer interesting lessons on resolving this paradox.

Entrepreneurship

How to benefit from closed networks?

Andrew Shipilov

Let’s continue reviewing basic topics in inter-personal networking. We learned that an individual with open inter-personal network is a person whose friends don’t know each other. This individual is considered to be a broker, because he or she can combine information and knowledge from some of his/her network contacts and create something new and innovative. We also know that some people are simply hardwired in their brains to become brokers, because they are more manipulative with their network contacts than the others (see the previous post on self-monitoring).

Entrepreneurship

Kodak versus Fujifilm

The news about Kodak’s entry into Chapter 11 was paired with a Wall Street Journal story on how Fujifilm faced the same threat of digital photography, but were able to successfully adapt to the new challenges. To me, Kodak’s descent into bankruptcy is almost unimaginable, because I remember how dominant it was in film sales. I worked some summers in a photo store selling film and cameras. At the time, Kodak films were the most expensive, followed by Fuji and then Agfa.

Entrepreneurship

The imitator’s dilemma

I have enjoyed the book “The Innovator’s DNA” by my INSEAD colleague Hal Gregersen with Jeff Dyer and Clayton M. Christensen. It made me recall the earlier book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, and realize that part of my own research has been on a complementary issue. These books document the difficulties in maintaining and directing innovation efforts, and one possible response to them would be to say: Why bother innovating if I can wait for others to innovate and focus on being the best at implementing the innovation?

Leadership & Organisations

The Iron Lady’s failed mid-career transition

With the recent movie, The Iron Lady, leadership scholars like myself have seized the opportunity to reflect on the lessons of her life and career. In the film we see an old and diminished Maggie flashing back to Thatcher at the pinnacle of her power. But, perhaps the most important and the least obvious lesson— for Thatcher herself as well as for us— is about the midlife transition she failed to make; victim, as many of us, of her own success.

Leadership & Organisations

Being a Bridge

Anyone who loves Apple products should profusely thank Bill Fernandez.

Leadership & Organisations

When spending hurts

You’d think that creating a more equitable distribution of wealth would curb the urge to spend on status symbols – be they designer handbags or flat-screen TVs – as the “have-nots” try to keep up with the Jones.” But new marketing consumer research shows that the people will pay the price to stand out, even if they can’t afford it.

Leadership & Organisations

Leading During Downturns

Continuing on the theme of what the current market uncertainties may mean for leaders and their organizations…

Leadership & Organisations

Value Creation Logic – Not Budget Logic – Is Key to Successful Turnarounds

Javier Gimeno

Profits come from the gap between revenues and costs. So it is not surprising that when a downturn hits (typically in the form of lower demand and revenues), the typical emergency response is to develop plans to (a) increase revenues, and (b) decrease costs. How this is done, however, explains the difference between successful turnaround strategies and incremental, cosmetic responses.

Leadership & Organisations

Locked out of the boardroom

When new rules mandating seats for women on corporate boards go into effect in Europe next year, on which side will you be sitting?

Leadership & Organisations

Women on Boards: First, Diversity

For companies to be competitive, they should think strategically and unconventionally about the composition of their board.

Leadership & Organisations

Fortis Healthcare: Moving beyond India

Mrinalini Reddy

Healthcare needs are almost desperate in many parts of Asia and one company is ambitiously ramping up its services across the region.

Leadership & Organisations

Over-achieving and under-represented: The case for women on

The Vice President of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, says quotas are the only way to move women into the boardroom quickly enough. But will this really open the door?

Entrepreneurship

Networking: Is it vital to an entrepreneur’s success?

Can sharing an idea help take it from the drawing board to the marketplace? Talk may cost nothing but new research indicates it gives an entrepreneur a better chance of success.

Leadership & Organisations

“Special Forces” in Recessionary Times

A final entry on coping with recessionary times (for now), although a theme we may return to…

Economics & Finance

Repairing Europe and reviving the US

Paul Volcker served as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve during a period of economic turbulence when his prescribed monetary policies helped tame double-digit inflation rates in the early 1980s. More recently, he served as chairman of President Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Board from February 2009 until January 2011. A vocal advocate for banking reform, his eponymous Volcker Rule, due to come into force next year, is meant to prevent American banks from making big bets on markets with their own money or from backing private equity and hedge funds. In an interview with INSEAD Knowledge at the Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy in Singapore recently, he discusses Europe’s response to the sovereign debt crisis, stagnant U.S. unemployment and shortfalls in banking legislation in the aftermath of the credit crisis.

Strategy

Want a successful merger?

Companies frequently cite synergies as a motivation for mergers. However, research shows many related mergers do produce increased cash flows and new products.

Leadership & Organisations

Women in news

Christine Ockrent has set new standards for women in news for the past three decades. Here she discusses candidly the heights scaled, and battles fought, won and lost.

Entrepreneurship

Individual capitalism

At a time when business and industry are going through mega-changes and Wall Street capitalism comes under fire, the energy and innovation of the entrepreneur are more important than ever, says the founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital.

Leadership & Organisations

How to make better decisions

Does the urge to curb reckless spending or a higher level of self-control have any relationship to a full bladder? According to new research by INSEAD Visiting Professor of Marketing Mirjam Tuk it does, and what’s more this state of mind can be induced by external cues as well.

Leadership & Organisations

From management to leadership

Self-examination is the key to successful leadership and it starts in business school, according to new research.

Leadership & Organisations

Meetings: Do you really need to show up?

Virtual tools such as email and instant messaging and Skype can be just as effective as face-to-face meetings. It all depends on orientation and mindsets.

Leadership & Organisations

From management to leadership

Self-examination is the key to successful leadership and it starts in business school, according to new research.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership in crisis – where are the heroes?

In a globalised world dominated by financial woes, where are the leaders who will be our salvation? Three INSEAD professors give their views on the problems these leaders face and why they may be failing.

Leadership & Organisations

The man who measures your CEO’s shoes

Justin Menkes has made a successful career out of telling companies who should (or shouldn’t) be their next CEO. And which ones are worth saving when they fail.
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Leadership & Organisations

Disney without Walt and Apple without Steve: Déjà vu?

With Apple’s messianic chief moving on, will his legacy be a bunch of disciples bereft of the innovation he so convincingly extracted from them, asks INSEAD’s Hal Gregersen.

Economics & Finance

Fanning the financial crisis: Has regulation gone wrong?

Far from being the classic “risk management tool”, government bonds today are beginning to look like toxic assets. And bailing out the governments issuing these bonds is tantamount to bailing out the banks… yet again. So hypothesises INSEAD Finance Professor Theo Vermaelen…

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership: Are you connecting and collaborating?

S. Karabell, H. Ibarrra

New research shows that unless you venture beyond your corporate walls, you’ll fall behind the competition.

Economics & Finance

Private equity comes of age

Big potential exists in these large emerging markets, but for how long?

Economics & Finance

How does media coverage affect share prices?

INSEAD research suggests the best returns come from companies who never make the news.

Leadership & Organisations

Coming to terms with your dark side

Are you an Anakin Skywalker or a Darth Vader? INSEAD Professor Michael Jarrett explores some ugly traits of leadership behaviour and dares you to accompany him.

Entrepreneurship

Can you really make money online?

Ecommerce startup investment options are plentiful in Asia, so how do you capitalise and avoid losing it all?
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Leadership & Organisations

Too few good women: Why are boards still male domains?

New corporate governance strictures are making way for women on corporate boards. But how to find suitable candidates? And what do women really add to the board room?

Leadership & Organisations

Mimicry: The latest negotiating strategy

Negotiating online? New research shows that imitating your counterpart’s writing style can help seal you a better deal, proving that imitation is indeed the better part of flattery…

Leadership & Organisations

Winning in high-turnover markets

When managers evaluate potential new businesses, the first question they often ask is: How fast is the market growing? By focusing only on growth, however, they often overlook another critical measure of market potential — high turnover of the customer base. High turnover can make a market dynamic, even when the overall growth rate is low.

Leadership & Organisations

Betting on the wind

Strong headwinds are challenging Spain’s largest wind turbine manufacturer despite a surging demand for renewable power. Gamesa’s CTO discusses its emerging markets expansion, new technologies and the outlook for offshore, and rising competition in the rapidly evolving wind energy sector.

Leadership & Organisations

Growing a business with word-of-mouth marketing

Most start-up companies allocate a hefty budget for advertising and marketing at the beginning, especially when they have lofty goals of capturing market share. But an Indian online travel start-up has proven the unthinkable: you can do it all by word-of-mouth and not spend a penny on advertising.

Leadership & Organisations

Growing a business with word-of-mouth marketing

Most start-up companies allocate a hefty budget for advertising and marketing at the beginning, especially when they have lofty goals of capturing market share. But an Indian online travel start-up has proven the unthinkable: you can do it all by word-of-mouth and not spend a penny on advertising.

Leadership & Organisations

Do gamblers make good leaders?

A professor of corporate strategy at Tsinghua University explores the link between risk-taking in the casino and in the board room.

Leadership & Organisations

Infosys leadership transition: View from India

Planning for succession in India has traditionally been a matter for the country's family-run businesses. The recent leadership transition at Infosys Technologies could set new standards for professional management in the country’s burgeoning publically-held companies.

Leadership & Organisations

Infosys leaders on leadership

When Infosys Technologies Ltd. founder and CEO S. Gopalakrishnan addressed INSEAD as part of the Global Leadership Series in March 2011, the 55-year-old corporate titan said he believes in leading by example. Now, the world is about to see if he practices what he preaches.

Leadership & Organisations

When deadlines don't work: The perils of exploding job offer

Employers could be forgiven for wanting their favorite candidates to accept a job offer NOW. But new research shows that putting a time limit on a job offer can have far-reaching negative repercussions.

Economics & Finance

When profits are private and losses are public

Thomas Huertas of the Financial Services Authority, regulator of the financial services industry in the UK, is a firm believer that better regulation will avoid a repetition of the recent financial meltdown.

Leadership & Organisations

Executive women: Is there a future?

There are plenty of women in the workplace – and in positions only dreamed of a generation ago: airline pilots, scientists, executives. But not TOP executives. In the United States alone, only 14 percent hold the keys to the executive suite, a 2010 report by non-profit group Catalyst reports.

Leadership & Organisations

Playing hardball or playing nice...

You’ve been offered your dream job but you are also unhappy with the contract terms. Negotiating for more might risk galling your future boss. But men still ask. Women traditionally don’t – simply because being “pushy” could result in negative social consequences, which, for women, tend to be about as important as the material benefits at stake, according to Linda Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University

Family Business

Trouble at the family mill?

Family-owned companies need to be run with emotional, as well as professional leadership, experts say. That’s one area where senior family members often have a crucial role to play.

Economics & Finance

CEO view: Gary Wang (MBA ‘02J), founder of Tudou.com

Tudou.com, China's answer to YouTube with user-generated plus paid content, is one of the country's fastest-growing companies. Founder and INSEAD alumnus Gary Wang discusses strategy and what it takes to start and grow a media company in China.

Career

The value of bicultural individuals to organisations

How do companies improve operationally with diverse and talented workforces? By taking advantage of individuals who feel at home in multiple cultures, says INSEAD visiting professor Mary Yoko Brannen.
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Career

How to make friends and gain influence …by losing employees

Fighting to attract and retain the best talent is still important but letting employees go, even in good times, is also beneficial, says a research team led by INSEAD faculty Andrew Shipilov and Frederic Godart.
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Leadership & Organisations

Leadership today: less charisma, more consensus

When you think of words to describe good leadership, ‘charisma’ usually comes somewhere near the top of the list. After all, all the good ideas in the world won’t get anywhere if you aren’t compelling enough to get people to listen to you. But not all successful CEOs are charismatic and today’s complex and profound economic crisis has created a real challenge both for executives and for the professionals who train them.

Leadership & Organisations

The gender gap

INSEAD Professor Herminia Ibarra, co-author of a World Economic Forum report, sheds light on where different countries stand on the issue of gender equality in the corporate world and why women are still facing barriers to attain both the highest echelons and "mission critical" roles.

Leadership & Organisations

Male teachers get top marks

New findings by Amine Ouazad, an Assistant Professor at INSEAD, shows that one of the most effective ways to get students to listen and work hard is to put a male teacher at the front of the classroom.

Leadership & Organisations

Women social entrepreneurs driven by impact rather than scal

Many women are turning to social entrepreneurship because they tend to work more with their hearts, says American serial social entrepreneur and Ashoka Fellow Christina Jordan.

Leadership & Organisations

Narrowing the gender gap in Malaysia

A look at how policy and advocacy initiatives have helped narrow the gender gap in Malaysia.

Leadership & Organisations

Gender discrimination in India: a reality check

Despite the positive developments for women in India -- increased visibility in the public sphere, presence of women in the labour force across international borders and lower fertility rates--gender discrimination not only persists but also has seen little decline.
4 comments

Leadership & Organisations

Claire Pike remembers

In 1968, Claire Pike began her MBA studies at INSEAD, her first step on the road leading to her present position as Secretary General of the school. After three decades of service, she talks to INSEAD Knowledge Executive Editor Shellie Karabell about her experiences and about developments at the school.

Leadership & Organisations

Setting the rules of the game

As the financial crisis morphs into a sovereign debt crisis, the corporate governance of banks is back under the spotlight. Whose interests should bank boards be serving? And who should be monitoring what banks do? INSEAD Professor Jean Dermine shares his views.

Leadership & Organisations

Why diversity matters

Japan's economy has been in dramatic decline, says INSEAD professor Stewart Black. What's causing its malaise and can we expect a rebound?
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Leadership & Organisations

Secrets of virtual success

How do you manage a team across borders and time zones? Start by tearing up your old management rule book, says INSEAD Professor Erin Meyer.

Leadership & Organisations

The Merck Orchestra: using Mendelssohn to teach leadership

Listen to the Merck Orchestra perform and hear what lessons it can offer.

Leadership & Organisations

The pursuit of value

In the second article of a three-part series, INSEAD Professor Horacio Falcao tells INSEAD Knowledge editor Stuart Pallister about strategies for creating and claiming value in negotiations.

Leadership & Organisations

What’s your CEO really worth?

If there is a culprit behind the dismal state of corporate governance today, INSEAD Professor Ludo Van der Heyden blames Wall Street capitalism.

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate models for corporate governance

 “There are some paradigms of companies that not only create strong wealth - creating incentives for top managers – but seem to sustain that, seem to do it year after year. One of my favourites is Johnson & Johnson…” INSEAD Professor of Accounting and Control S. David Young.

Leadership & Organisations

The 'Mark Hurd Affair'

On August 6, Hewlett Packard’s board forced CEO Mark Hurd to resign after the conclusion of a sexual harassment investigation. Hurd had apparently been accused by Jodie Fisher, a marketing contractor, of giving her less business with the company because she did not respond to his sexual advances. Fisher worked for HP from 2007 to 2009 helping to organise networking events. Hurd denies all the charges and the HP board also agreed that he did not violate the company’s sexual harassment policies.

Leadership & Organisations

Taking the lead

Peter Grauer, the Chairman and CEO of Bloomberg, is a man with a mantra and he repeats it every chance he gets: “We have an aspiration at Bloomberg to become the most influential news organisation in the world.”

Leadership & Organisations

How LG Electronics reinvented itself in the US

It took three attempts in four years for Korean electronics giant LG Electronics (LGE) to launch its brand in the US market in 2002. Five years later, it became the top seller of refrigerators and washing machines, and has since been successfully maintaining its lead in the two home appliance categories with current respective market shares of about 24 per cent.
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Leadership & Organisations

A passion for education

If you build it, they will come, so the mantra goes, and that’s exactly what Ng Gim Choo did with the EtonHouse group of schools. However, after having become an established market leader in Singapore with 10 centres, Ng says breaking into the China market was more daunting.

Entrepreneurship

Raising the bar on dyslexia treatment

On a trip back home to North Carolina, Chad Myers (MBA ‘04J) met up with a friend and advisor, Sandie Barrie Blackley, and told her he was looking to get back into entrepreneurship. At that stage of his life, some two years ago, Myers was teaching at INSEAD and running the school’s International Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Leadership & Organisations

Strong Leadership in Times of Transition

INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour Charles Galunic interviews Statoil CEO Helge Lund, an INSEAD alumnus.

Leadership & Organisations

Prosperity through partnership

Education provided an ‘initial window of opportunity’ for women, says Haifa Al Kaylani, the founder and chairman of the Arab International Women’s Forum (AIWF).

Economics & Finance

Getting back to basics

Whether in innovation and governance, private equity, or entrepreneurship, the messages in today’s increasingly global business environment are loud and clear: think differently, don’t underestimate emerging markets, and get back to basics. These were some of the main themes voiced at INSEAD’s Leadership Summit Europe 2010 held recently in Fontainebleau.

Leadership & Organisations

Is it over yet? Businessmen offer recession insight

These are indeed times that try men's (and women's) souls. But the way forward is not to cut back or sit on the sidelines. According to several business leaders attending INSEAD's Leadership Summit Europe, you’ve got to keep one eye on the balance sheet, another on the horizon and be mindful of constant change as new circumstances will often hide opportunities in what appears to be trouble.

Responsibility

Social enterprises: an attractive career choice for women?

Women are far more likely to be in positions of leadership in social enterprises than in the traditional small and medium business sector. That was one of the main findings of research by the UK Social Enterprise Coalition based on a survey. Some 26 per cent of social enterprises could be described as 'women-led', almost twice as many as for small businesses for which the figure was 14 per cent.

Leadership & Organisations

The public's advocate

Public service takes many different forms. In the case of David Webb, who jokingly calls himself a 'reformed investment banker', public service comes in the form of being a non-profit corporate governance watchdog and an advocate for minority shareholders in Hong Kong.

Leadership & Organisations

Negotiating to win

Karen Cho

In the first of a series of articles on value negotiation, INSEAD Professor Horacio Falcao tells INSEAD Knowledge about the tactics and strategies you need in order to succeed at the negotiating table.

Leadership & Organisations

Is it too late to get into the China market?

Is it too late for multinationals to enter China right now? Not so, according to Edward Tse, Booz & Company’s senior partner and chairman for Greater China.

Leadership & Organisations

Measuring the effectiveness of corporate governance

Trust is the foundation of sustainable development. As the world continues to get smaller, our mutual interdependence increases and we all need to be able to mobilise the resources and goodwill of others to achieve success. That can only be achieved through gaining their trust. Therefore, the ability to gain the trust of global financial markets and of all the stakeholders in the value chain is becoming the key to success.
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Leadership & Organisations

The power of true strategy

What do Google and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? According to author Robert Greene, both are -- or were -- great strategists of their time. And because of that, both wielded enormous power and control, which made them formidable forces to contend with.

Leadership & Organisations

CEO view: Josep Oliu, Banco Sabadell

Josep Oliu has been through three economic crises as a banker in Spain -- two of them since becoming CEO of Banco Sabadell Group. The veteran banker spoke with INSEAD Knowledge recently at the Group’s headquarters in Barcelona about the crisis and what we can learn from it.

Strategy

Google’s China dilemma

Some four years after setting up Google China, the leading internet search engine company has decided to confront the Chinese authorities over censorship, following alleged cyber attacks on the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Responsibility

Turning around Tyco: how corporate governance saved the day

“Shareholders are screaming. The stock price has dropped from $60 to $7 a share. The press is hitting you every day with requests for info on the turnaround of the company. The prior management is still there, wondering about their futures. The prior board is there, wondering about their futures. And you’re there, trying to bring some order to this chaos.”

Leadership & Organisations

Inside the world of Sir Martin Sorrell

“Our strategy is built on three pillars,” says communications guru Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of the world’s largest communications services company, WPP. ‘New markets’, which means the shift to Asia and the South, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and Next-11 markets; ‘new media’, that’s digital in the sense of PC, mobile and video content; and ‘consumer insight,’ “because we’re very focused on how the consumer is changing, not just in a recessionary environment but in the longer term: their media consumption habits, not just their reaction to products and services.”
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Strategy

Raffles Hotels marketing strategy

INSEAD Knowledge

Contrary to the way many companies try to grow their bottom line, the mantra for hospitality group Raffles Hotels & Resorts is slow and steady. And according to its President John M. Johnston, that has served this boutique luxury hotel chain just fine.

Economics & Finance

Polling the wisdom of the people

"There is a lot of information, but it's sometimes more noise than knowledge," says Dalia Mogahed, referring to the lack of accurate information on the real views of Muslims, and the ensuing misunderstanding between the Western and Muslim worlds.

Leadership & Organisations

How do you measure success at the top?

Perhaps at no other time in history has CEO compensation come under such scrutiny. What makes these business leaders, who are more often than not men, worth so much money?

Career

Smart economics: investing in working women

Working women make up a fast-growing percentage of the global workforce, which is now estimated at 46 per cent of the total. In emerging markets, most working women are self-employed, earning low and irregular incomes.

Career

Diversity in the workplace

Be it male-female or multi-cultural, diversity is an offshoot of today’s global economy, the workforce more and more reflecting society’s make-up. But with unemployment having increased since the economic crisis, corporate diversity targets - in the developed world, at least- are in jeopardy, with the remaining workforce left largely unmotivated, disillusioned, and prepared to jump ship at the next job offer. How can companies cope? And can maintaining workforce diversity be an asset or a liability to the bottom line in this environment?

Strategy

Finding the rhythm of the centre

'Finding the rhythm of the centre' is how Alex Cummings, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Coca-Cola, describes bridging the gap between his staff working in the field and those who work in the corporate 'centre' of power. He talks about a 'natural tension' between the two parts and how they can be brought together. "The rhythms are different," he explains.

Leadership & Organisations

Why MBAs should not sign the Harvard Business School oath

Harvard MBAs have proposed that all MBA students sign an oath. The oath can be found on http://mbaoath.org/take-the-oath. It pledges, among other things, to “contribute to the well-being of society” and to “create sustainable economic, social and environmental prosperity worldwide.” I don’t believe that this is a good idea, for three reasons. First, some parts of the pledge are inconsistent with fiduciary duties and ethical standards. Second the oath is a misplaced response to the financial crisis. Third, I don’t believe in pledges as an instrument to guide people’s behaviour.

Leadership & Organisations

Why an MBA oath?

Business schools have become an easy target as the butt of jokes about the causes of the current economic crisis. A recent segment on ‘The Daily Show,’ an American satirical television programme, explored the theme of MBAs being to blame for the crisis and the MBA oath as a possible remedy. Its presenter feigned surprise that not all students were willing to sign up to an oath that said: “I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.” No doubt the view that MBAs would have difficulty in making such a commitment is more widespread and yet it seems such a straightforward commitment to make. So in answer to the question, ‘why an MBA oath?’, one response surely must be: ‘Why not?’ Why should it be so difficult for MBAs to commit to behaving ethically?

Leadership & Organisations

Davos in Delhi: how India figures in the global agenda

The global economic recovery is for real and is being led by emerging countries such as India. That was one of the two key messages from the recently-held India Economic Summit here, jointly hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Leadership & Organisations

A Mantra of Business Success

INSEAD Knowledge

For Sir Martin Sorrell, Group CEO of marketing communications services giant WPP, the key to future business success lies in a short and simple mantra: new markets, new media, and consumer insight.

Leadership & Organisations

The Quest for Authenticity

After writing books on business and leadership for years, Manfred Kets de Vries has turned his attention to four of the main tenets of life, which have a profound impact on each of us.

Strategy

Cash is king, so work your working capital

With credit so hard to get during this recession, the old adage that “cash is king” is even more relevant. But most companies have access to more cash than they realise, say two INSEAD professors, and it’s right in front of them, in their company balance sheets.

Leadership & Organisations

The dark side of trust

By and large, trust is a good thing. But there can also be too much of a good thing. One needs to look no further than the scandal involving disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff to appreciate the detrimental effects of misguided or excessive trust, for which there are dire consequences.

Leadership & Organisations

Global careers in academia: following the ideas

Although Wall Street may be feeling battered and bruised from the financial crisis, if you want a career in teaching business, you should still consider heading for the US at some point. That was the consensus view among INSEAD PhD programme graduates taking part in the school’s 20th reunion celebration at its Europe campus.

Leadership & Organisations

The long march to prosperity

Some 20 years ago, many upwardly mobile young men at China’s elite universities became members of the Communist Party. It was the thing to do, and Xiao Zhixing was no exception.

Leadership & Organisations

Planning for the unthinkable

We’ve been so focused on the financial crisis that we’ve neglected to pay attention to other issues, which, if left on the backburner, could upset the status quo. That’s the view of futurist and business strategist Peter Schwartz.

Leadership & Organisations

Breaking gender stereotypes in the Middle East

Contrary to popular belief, women in the Middle East are not strictly marginalised in society and the workforce. That is to say, they are not necessarily as oppressed or victimised as is often perceived. This is according to a working paper by INSEAD research fellow Katty Marmenout, who is based at the Centre for Executive Education and Research in Abu Dhabi.

Economics & Finance

How to avert a financial crisis

Ludo Van der Heyden

Companies are overreacting to the economic downturn but, had they been better prepared in the first place, they wouldn’t find themselves in such a fix. This is according to Ludo Van der Heyden, INSEAD Professor of Technology and Operations Management.

Leadership & Organisations

Enrich your social capital with the right networks

Networking is not all that it’s cracked up to be; in fact it can even be downright harmful, so says Martin Gargiulo, an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD and expert on social network analysis.
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Leadership & Organisations

How to stimulate creativity? Go live abroad

People who live abroad are more creative; and the more time they spend away from home, the more creative they become. That’s according to a recent study done by William Maddux, an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD.

Leadership & Organisations

Collaborating for results

As much as we think that collaboration makes good business sense, there are times where it can go horribly wrong, so says Morten Hansen, a Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD.

Leadership & Organisations

The leadership diversity puzzle

They say it’s never a bad time to invest in leadership. But is that still true, even during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Unilever, the food and personal care products giant, thinks so and is putting its money where its mouth is.

Leadership & Organisations

Why women mean business

Business leaders ignore gender issues at their peril. That's the view of CEO of gender consultancy 20-First and INSEAD alumna Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. In a new book, 'Why Women Mean Business', Wittenberg-Cox and her co-author Alison Maitland say organisations that become savvy about 'womenomics' will win in the war for the best talent and leadership and the war for customers.

Leadership & Organisations

Capitalising on ‘women power’

There aren’t enough women in management roles and that is bad for business. That’s the conclusion of a panel of experts who spoke at INSEAD’s Asia campus in Singapore for International Women’s Day.

Leadership & Organisations

Seeing eye to eye in business negotiations

karen Cho

With expressions like 'out of sight, out of mind', one would make a natural assumption that there's a lot to be gained from direct face-to-face communication.

Leadership & Organisations

Women and the ‘vision thing’

The good news is that in a study of executives, women did better than men on several measures. The bad news is that women fell significantly behind in one key area: vision.
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Leadership & Organisations

Soft information or 'cheap talk' in company announcements

Next time you listen to a CEO talk about his or her company, play close attention to whether the person is being unusually optimistic or pessimistic. This sentiment can give you a good indication about where the company's stock price is headed.

Entrepreneurship

African entrepreneurs must pressure their governments to regulate their business environments

Although many African companies will be hit by the current global slowdown, there is a lot that local entrepreneurs and their governments can do to improve their business environments, says Arthur Levi, former head of the World Bank’s private sector arm, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Europe.

Leadership & Organisations

It's time to change our questions

Transformational leaders ask innovative questions — lots of them. In anticipation of President Obama’s inauguration speech, INSEAD professor Hal Gregersen wondered if the new president would do the same, but found that his questions fell a bit short compared to innovative leaders in other times and places.

Economics & Finance

Can leadership withstand the ravages of the crisis?

The sudden collapse of Lehman Brothers and the fall of AIG have not just shaken the financial community to its core, which has sent reverberations worldwide, its leaders have also come under fire. But there's more to these highly-publicised institutional collapses than meets the eye, according to Subramanian Rangan, Associate Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD.

Leadership & Organisations

The leadership circle

“Leaders get the best out of followers and followers get the best out of leaders,” says Manfred Kets De Vries, Clinical Professor of Leadership Development at INSEAD. The connection between leaders and their staff is only one of many circular connections he sees.

Leadership & Organisations

Effecting change management: a reality with the LingHe Simulation?

With China’s business environment undergoing fast and significant change – partially driven by the introduction of information and communication technologies into business relationships – managers now need to be more effective than ever in implementing change within their organisations.

Leadership & Organisations

Call me anything except Junior

The new Oliver Stone film W explores an important concern for business and wealthy families - how parent-child relationships shape a child's personality development and, specifically, individual drives and motivations. The coming of age drama could be many family businesses where a feckless son struggles to redeem himself by overtaking his preferred younger sibling to succeed his father as head of the family dynasty.

Leadership & Organisations

How much diversity is too much?

For French carmaker Renault, diversity – men and women, young and old, engineers and non-engineers, different nationalities – means increased creativity, imagination and performance.

Entrepreneurship

What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur

When you are being hounded by the tax authorities because you can’t pay your personal taxes, and when your company has just 30,000 euros left in the bank but is burning 200,000 euros a month - you don’t really feel very successful. This was the situation Gilles Babinet experienced – many times, in fact. It’s also a common occurrence in entrepreneurship, he said during his opening keynote address at the first INSEAD Global Entrepreneurship Forum.
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Leadership & Organisations

Unshackling the ‘double bind’

Few women have succeeded in shattering the glass ceiling. Even those who have achieved phenomenal success in their respective fields have taken a few hard knocks along the way.

Strategy

Riding the ‘earning horse’: Indian Railways

INSEAD Knowledge

Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer and one of the biggest and busiest rail networks in the world, carrying some 17 million people and more than one million tonnes of freight daily. It was, however, until very recently, a loss-making organisation, which was heading for bankruptcy. Starting his term in 2004 with a budget of just $200 million with which to save the national institution, India’s Minister of Railways Lalu Prasad engineered a dramatic turnaround. Last year, Indian Railways’ revenue came to $6 billion.

Leadership & Organisations

The Momentum Effect

CEOs dream of delivering efficient and sustainable growth – growth that would put serious distance between them and their competitors. Unfortunately, the way most large corporations generate growth is so expensive and inefficient that for most firms, meaningful, market-beating growth has remained just that – a dream. Until now.

Responsibility

Responsible leaders and sustainable growth?

Are business leaders really buying into sustainable development? According to McKinsey, only 20 per cent of executives feel that sustainability is part of their responsibility.

Leadership & Organisations

Women and Money

Are men or women better at investing? “This is not only a fun question but it is of great practical value,” says INSEAD Assistant Professor of Finance, Lily Fang, who hosted a Women and Money forum at INSEAD recently.

Leadership & Organisations

Cross-cultural negotiations: avoiding the pitfalls

When entering into negotiations, we should always take into account cultural factors such as the educational or religious background of the person sitting across the table, but, says INSEAD professor Horacio Falcao, many people both underestimate and overestimate the cross-cultural aspects.
3 comments

Marketing

More expensive medication may be more potent

“Marketing variables not only influence people’s perceptions and expectations, they actually influence the real efficacy of products such as medications.”

Leadership & Organisations

The value creation imperative

It's been just over 400 years since a Dutch company became the first organisation to sell shares and became publicly traded. By 2007, more than one billion people owned a stake in the world's companies worth more than $75 trillion.

Leadership & Organisations

Linking team diversity to extreme team performance

During his time working at Vivendi Universal, Fabrice Cavarretta, a PhD candidate in organisational behaviour at INSEAD, says “intuitively it felt that the company would either do extremely well or very badly. But it was not clear whether anyone could have predicted which way it would go. I became fascinated by Vivendi’s top management team’s composition, which was so homogeneous one could feel the situation turn out excessively well, or be a complete fiasco – one extreme or the other.”

Leadership & Organisations

Relationship building: A key driver for securing repeat business

A study of consulting firm Celerant has found that relationship building is key to bringing in repeat business which accounts for up to 70 per cent of its revenues each year.

Career

Putting leaders on the couch

When INSEAD Professor Manfred Kets de Vries coaches leadership teams, he effectively puts them on the couch – treating them not so much as rational actors but as emotional ones.

Strategy

Banyan Tree: The brand imperative

“There are only two advantages in life which are proprietary: technology and branding. Since I’m not a technologist, I decided that whatever business I was going to do next had to have a strong brand.”

Strategy

New media: The online evolution of newspapers

In September, the New York Times did an about-face of sorts. It ended its paid-for online subscription model, under which it had been charging for access to premium content by columnists and commentators such as economist Paul Krugman and writer Thomas Friedman.

Strategy

Buying companies for new competencies: Is it worth it?

INSEAD Knowledge

In fast-moving industries, large companies are increasingly using acquisitions as a strategy to obtain new competencies from smaller firms. The key aspect of the acquisition is to gain access to the knowledge assets of the target firm. This knowledge- which often resides in the employees- is critical for the acquisition to create value for the acquiring firm. However, the difficulty of evaluating and monitoring employees in a large firm and the reduction in employees’ incentives, due to less control over their efforts and lower profit-sharing, can lead to a persistent decline in their productivity after the acquisition.

Strategy

In search of blue oceans: AOL (Europe)

Internet business America Online (AOL) has had a chequered history since its marriage to the US media giant Time Warner in 2002. In fact, Time Warner’s $106 billion deal to buy the internet business is regarded today as one of the worst in corporate history.

Strategy

Globalising the brand: Looking beyond lower costs

While many multinational firms are choosing to outsource services and production to Asia, one company says it’s looking beyond lowering costs and is aiming to ‘globalise its corporate brand,’ by developing a major R&D base in India.

Strategy

CEO view: Judy Leissner of Grace Vineyard

A mainland Chinese winery is establishing its name internationally for its wines, even though it’s currently targetting the domestic market. A recent article in the Financial Times by wine critic Jancis Robinson, called ‘Bordeaux, Burgundy and ...Yongning?’, spoke of Grace Vineyard’s Chairman’s Reserve Merlot/Cabernet 2004 as ‘the finest wine so far made in the country that is already the world’s sixth most important grower of grapevines.’

Strategy

Building global brands in Asia

Look closely at the top 100 Global Brands, according to Interbrand and BusinessWeek, and you’ll see many European and North American favorites that have given great products or services over many years. What you won’t see on that list are many Asian firms, apart from some notable companies in Japan and South Korea.

Leadership & Organisations

Leader or follower? The future of the chemical industry in Europe

A survey has found that an overwhelming majority of managers of chemical firms in Western Europe hold negative views about new regulations governing the industry. However, according to Baptiste Lebreton, postdoctoral research fellow at INSEAD, and Luk Van Wassenhove, who holds the Henry Ford chair in manufacturing, the latest EU directive can be used to create value and increase competitive advantage.

Leadership & Organisations

The global business leader

INSEAD, INSEAD Knowledge, J. Frank Brown, The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace

Strategy

In search of blue oceans: The Starwood experience

Are companies using Blue Ocean Strategy to search for ‘uncontested market space’ and, if so, how? One group which has been exploring blue ocean thinking for the past three years is Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Strategy

CEO View: John Mullen of DHL

INSEAD Knowledge

The credit crunch is a cause for concern, says DHL CEO John Mullen, due to the current uncertainty in the US economy and the possibility it could go into recession. “We see it in our trading results,” he says. “We’re up one month, we feel positive and then we have a bad month and everyone’s full of doom and gloom, and then the next month’s good again.”

Career

Building and sustaining a strong talent pipeline

INSEAD Knowledge

Best practices only work in a given context, says Günter Stahl, INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour. “So what works for one company may not work for another.”

Strategy

In search of blue oceans

First came the book and now there is an institute. The international bestseller, ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ written by INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, sold more than a million copies in its first year of publication and is being published in a record-breaking 41 languages. Although there are no plans for a follow-up book at this stage, INSEAD has set up the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute.

Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy: The primer

The book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant’ has had a huge impact worldwide. Written by two INSEAD professors, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, it sold more than a million copies within its first year of publication and has been translated into 39 languages, breaking Harvard Publishing records as the fastest selling book in print.

Strategy

The new deal at the top

Most companies have managers reporting directly to the CEO on a one-to-one basis, with responsibility for their units or regions,” says Yves Doz, who holds the Timken chair in Global Technology and Innovation at INSEAD. The Professor of Business Policy says the result is that “the businesses or regions tend to behave in an autonomous fashion similar to the way a baron would manage his fiefdom.”

Strategy

Reputational risk management: A key determinant of competitive performance

INSEAD Knowledge

When WorldCom collapsed in 2002, its investors lost billions – and so did shareholders of Citigroup. Markets punished the financial giant for its part in the financial scandal. Citigroup had risked its reputation by developing a web of intimate business relationships with the fraud-ridden telecoms firm.

Marketing

How behaviour prediction can help to reinforce good habits but break bad ones

Human beings are creatures of habit. Many of our actions are repetitive and require little conscious thought or effort. However, according to a new study, by predicting our behaviour we can actually reinforce good habits and break bad ones.

Leadership & Organisations

Closing the deal in negotiations: Avoid rushing in

INSEAD Knowledge

Closing a deal can be ‘extremely hard’, says INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Decision Sciences Horacio Falcao, because it’s the conclusion of the whole negotiating process. If something has gone wrong and hasn’t been picked up by that point, the person you’re negotiating with will “probably err on the side of ‘no’ rather than ‘yes’.”

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship: Use symbols to attract resources

Fresh entrepreneurs face the same problem when starting out on their own: “When you are relatively young, with relatively little experience, and you are relatively poor, and you have an unproven new idea, what do you have to do to convince powerful and rich people to give you the first hundred thousand pounds so you can start developing your products?” says INSEAD Associate Professor of Strategy Quy Nguyen Huy. The answer is to pay attention to ‘symbolic management’ at the very earliest stages of a new venture.
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Career

The employee value proposition

A lot of companies talk about being an employer of choice, but as competition for talent heats to a boil, Stewart Black, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, says executives have to do more than give the concept lip service.

Leadership & Organisations

Networking is vital for successful managers

Managers today juggle more responsibilities than ever and for many of them networking becomes an afterthought. Herminia Ibarra, INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour says that’s a potentially fatal career mistake. “What you know is who you know,” she says and warns that managers who neglect to build their networks risk failing or remaining stuck in middle management.