May 21, 2013
Tim Cook performed brilliantly in front of Congress today. He was authoritative, in breathtaking command of his facts, as he always is, and brought a unique perspective to each response. Senator Levin was out for blood, but "No one laid a glove on him," as Phillip Emer DeWitt wrote for Fortune. He put his questioners to shame. His response to the question of whether Apple was violating basic rules of fairness was brilliant: "I am...
May 20, 2013
The annual 10-K report that JPMorgan Chase filed with the SEC in February includes a 13-page section on "Risk Factors." It's a lawyerly, exhaustive, exhausting rundown of all the things that could possibly weigh on the earnings of a giant global bank, from regulatory...
May 16, 2013
One of the dumbest corporate governance issues is whether to split the roles of Board Chair and CEO. That debate is now playing out on the front pages of business sections (print and online) as shareholders will decide next week in a nonbinding vote whether to take the...
May 15, 2013
If you want to provoke a vigorous debate, start a conversation on organizational culture. While there is universal agreement that (1) it exists, and (2) that it plays a crucial role in shaping behavior in organizations, there is little consensus on what organizational culture actually is, never mind how it influences behavior and whether it is something leaders can change.
This is a problem, because without a reasonable definition (or definitions) of culture, we cannot hope to...
May 10, 2013
Some of the best advice we have all got — be it while making big personal decisions or making critical business decisions — is the same: Follow your inner voice. Most of us have heeded that counsel, yet if we were asked to list the elements that enable better decision-making, we would cite experience, research, data, even polls — but never our inner voices.
Logic precedes sixth sense because the known outnumber the unknown. When the reverse was true, people...
The form of capitalism that has emerged in Britain is the textbook description of how to organize capital markets and corporate sectors. It features dispersed shareholders with powers to elect directors and remove them with or without cause, large stock markets, active markets for corporate control, a good legal system, strong investor protection, a rigorous anti-trust authority — the list goes on.
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Here is a leadership lesson: Be selfish. Be very selfish.
For this message to be an effective leadership tip, we need to understand what selfishness is. Selfishness is typically defined as "concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself." If someone hears that the CEO is being selfish, the thought that is likely to come to mind is, "The leader is maximizing personal financial rewards even at the cost of the company's...
May 8, 2013
So is the best man for the job a woman?
Research by Hay Group, culled from its 17,000-person behavioral competency database in 2012, finds that when it comes to empathy, influence, and the ability to manage conflicts in the executive level, women show more skill than men. Specifically, women are more likely to show empathy as a strength, demonstrate strong ability in conflict management, show skills in influence,...
