A seismic shift is under way. Thanks to new technologies that enable frequent, low-friction, customized digital interactions, companies today are building much deeper ties with customers than ever before. Instead of waiting for customers to come to them, firms are addressing customers’ needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. It’s a win-win: Through what […]

Many managers have little faith in their employees’ ability to survive the twists and turns of a rapidly evolving economy. “The majority of people in disappearing jobs do not realise what is coming,” the head of strategy at a top German bank recently told us. “My call center workers are neither able nor willing to […]

It was the second day of an intensive leadership program I lead once a year and there were 20 participants in the room. Gupta and Randi* were standing in the middle of the group, opposite each other. “I can’t do it!” Gupta insisted as Randi stood opposite him, waiting. Earlier in the day, Gupta told […]

Deadlines are one of the biggest sources of stress in the workplace. Yet, many are flexible: Your manager might ask you to submit a proposal for a long-term project by Friday, but not plan to look at it until Tuesday. Could asking for more time (when we need it) be a simple way to avoid feeling panicked […]

On January 1, California law said that all locally headquartered publicly traded companies must have at least one female director by 2020. While new to the U.S., mandates to increase gender diversity on corporate boards are common elsewhere. For example, Norway, Spain, France, and Iceland all have laws requiring that women comprise at least 40% of boards […]

Would you rate yourself as highly productive? We’ve learned a lot about personal productivity and what makes some people more productive than others. Last year we published a survey to help professionals assess their own personal productivity — defined as the habits closely associated with accomplishing more each day. The survey focused on seven habits: developing daily […]

Each morning, you emphatically write at the top of your to-do list, “Work on presentation!” Perhaps you even underline it a time or two for emphasis. But at the end of the day, your resolve has turned to dismay: yet again, you spent most of your time in meetings. And when you had a bit […]

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) point to an age where forgery of documents, pictures, audio recordings, videos, and online identities will occur with unprecedented ease. AI is poised to make high-fidelity forgery inexpensive and automated, leading to potentially disastrous consequences for democracy, security, and society. As an AI researcher, I’m here to sound the […]

Visionary leadership is widely seen as key to strategic change. That’s because visionary leadership does not just set the strategic direction — it tells a story about why the change is worth pursuing and inspires people to embrace the change. Not surprisingly, then, science and practice have a very positive view of visionary leadership as a critical leadership competency.

In the last two decades we have witnessed many large-scale corporate scandals –think Worldcom’s accounting fraud, Citibank’s near-collapse, Enron’s bankruptcy – in which pervasive rule violations by both managers and lower-level employees led to massive ethical meltdowns. These and other scandals have sounded the alarm on the need to monitor corporate corruption. Read this great […]