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Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Leading Up, Down, and Sideways


U.S. Army General George Patton famously said, “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” The quote is often used to describe how aggressively assertive he was, conveniently ignoring the fact that Patton said — as a general — he was willing to follow. He implied that leadership involves flexibility, especially in a tumultuous environment such as war. At any one time, and depending on circumstances, there must be more than one person who is able and willing to take the lead.

It’s an idea that resonates strongly in today’s business world, where disruptive innovations, unexpected competitors, and industry upheavals have become commonplace. Greg Shea, Senior Fellow, Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management, says it’s the idea behind a new program, Becoming a Leader of Leaders: Pathways to Success.

 “Traditionally, the highest ranking person made the decisions and gave the orders. But today’s leaders can’t afford to have people reporting to them who are not leaders in their own right”, he says. “A turbulent, unpredictable world requires a kind of adaptability that can’t come just from the top — you need everyone to be proactive, scanning the environment, looking for opportunities and potential hurdles, and taking the initiative”.

Shea says that while the idea of “leading down” is getting plenty of attention, there is little talk about how leaders can and should do it. “This is the real core of the Becoming a Leader of Leaders. What are the skills you need? How do you manage and take care of yourself so you can develop others? How can you become a more effective coach and mentor?”.

 Leading down is only part of the job. Successful managers must also learn to lead up and sideways...

“If you’re not part of a team made up of a set of leaders reporting up, you are creating a vulnerability for yourself and your organization”, continues Shea. “Everyone should be actively involved. One CEO I worked with had an interesting approach. Every once in a while he would say to his team, ‘I am worried about ___ because no one else is worried about it.’ He expected a proactive set of folks who anticipate what needs to be done. He expected to be a leader of leaders”.

But becoming more adept at leading down and developing others’ leadership is only part of the equation. Linked closely are leading sideways — working with your peers to develop key interdependencies and fight against vulnerabilities — and leading up — how you approach those who are more senior, and how you find a good mentor and become a good mentee, especially in the mid- and later stage of your career. “Your peers and superiors also expect you to be proactive”, says Shea. “You have to be prepared to lead in every direction”.

Source: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

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    .·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
    Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en University of California at Berkeley y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
    Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
    Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
    Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
    Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en 
    The George Washington University (Washington DC)
    CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
    TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
    TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
    TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
    Skype: medinacasabella


    MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
    (mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
    es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
    soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

    Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
    Management Estratégico,
    Gestión del Cambio,
    Marketing Estratégico,
    Inversiones,
    Gestión Educativa,
    Capacitación

    de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

    a) Industria y Servicios,
    b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
    c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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    Friday, December 1, 2017

    5 Strategy Questions every Leader should make time for
    by Freek Vermeulen


    Have you ever noticed that when you ask someone in your company, “How are you?” they are more likely to answer “Busy!” than “Very well, thank you”? That is because the norm in most companies is that you are supposed to be very busy – or otherwise at least pretend to be – because otherwise you can’t be all that important. The answers “I am not up to much” and “I have some time on my hands, actually” are not going to do much for your internal status and career.

    However, that you are very busy all the time is actually a bit of problem when you are in charge of your company or unit’s strategy, and responsible for organizing it. Because it means that you don’t have much time to think and reflect. And thinking is in fact quite an important activity when it comes to assessing and developing a strategy.

    The CEO of a large, global bank once told me: “It is very easy for someone in my position to be very busy all the time. There is always another meeting you really have to attend, and you can fly somewhere else pretty much every other day. However, I feel that that is not what I am paid to do. It is my job to carefully think about our strategy.”

    I believe his view is spot-on. And there are other successful business leaders who understand the value of making time to think. Bill Gates, for example, was famous for taking a week off twice a year – spent in a secret waterfront cottage – just to think and reflect deeply about Microsoft and its future without any interruption. Similarly, Warren Buffett has said, “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think.”

    If you can’t find time to think, it probably means that you haven’t organized your firm, unit, or team very well, and you are busy putting out little fires all the time. It also means that you are at risk of leading your company astray.

    As famous management professor Henry Mintzberg has described, much of strategy is “emergent.” It is often not the result of a strategic plan just being implemented, but driven by opportunistic responses to unexpected events. Stuff happens. Companies often engage in new activities – customers, markets, products, and business models – serendipitously, in response to external events and lucky breaks. But this also means that business leaders need to make ample time to reflect on the configuration that has emerged. They need to systematically analyze and carefully think it through, and make adjustments where necessary.

    Many leaders don’t make that time – at least not enough of it.

    If you are in charge of an organization, force yourself to have regular and long stretches of uninterrupted time just to think things through. When you do so – and you should – here are five guiding questions that could help you reflect on the big picture.

    1. What does not fit?

    Ask yourself, of the various activities and businesses that you have moved into, do they make sense together? Individually, each of them may seem attractive, but can you explain why they would work well together; why the sum is greater than the parts?

    As the late Steve Jobs explained to Apple’s employees when he axed a seemingly attractive business line, “Although micro-cosmically it made sense, macro-cosmically it didn’t add up.” If you can’t explain how the sum is greater than the parts, re-assess its components.

    2. What would an outsider do?

    Firms often suffer from legacy products, projects, or beliefs. Things they do or deliberately have not done. Some of them can be the result of what in Organization Theory we call “escalation of commitment.” We have committed to something, and determinedly fought for it – and perhaps for all the right reasons – but now that things have changed and it no longer makes sense, we may still be inclined to persist. A good question to ask yourself is “what would other, external people do, if they found themselves in charge of this company?”

    Intel’s Andy Grove called it “the revolving door” when discussing strategy with then-CEO Gordon Moore; let’s pretend we are outsiders coming new to the job, ask ourselves what they would do, and then do it ourselves. It led Intel to withdraw from the business of memory chips, and focus on microprocessors. This resulted in more than a decade of 30 percent annual growth in revenue and 40 percent increase in net income.

    3. Is my organization consistent with my strategy?

    In 1990, Al West, the founder and CEO of SEI – the wealth management company that, at the time, was worth $195 million – found himself in a hospital bed for three months after a skiing accident. With not much more to do than stare at the ceiling and reflect on his company’s present and future, he realized that although they had declared innovation to be key in their strategy, the underlying organizational architecture was wholly unsuited for the job. When he went back to work, he slashed bureaucracy, implemented a team structure, and abandoned many company rules. The company started growing rapidly and is now worth about $8 billion.

    As a consequence of his involuntary thinking time, West did what all business leaders should do: he asked himself whether the way his company was set up was ideal for its strategic aspirations. What would your organization look like if you could design it from scratch?

    4. Do I understand why we do it this way?

    When I am getting to know a new firm, for instance because I am writing a case study on them, I make it a habit to not only find out how they do things but also explicitly ask why. Why do you do it this way? You’d be surprised how often I get the answer “that’s how we have always done it” [while shrugging shoulders] and “everybody in our industry does it this way.”

    The problem is that if you can’t even explain why your own company does it this way, I am quite unconvinced that it could not be done better. For example, when more than a decade ago I worked with a large British newspaper company, I asked why their papers were so big. Their answer was “all quality newspapers are big; customers would not want it any other way”. A few years later, a rival company – the Independent – halved the size of its newspaper, and saw a surge in circulation. Subsequently, many competitors followed, to similar effect. Yes, customers did want it. Later, I found out that the practice of large newspapers had begun in London, in 1712, because the English government started taxing newspapers by the number of pages they printed — the publishers responded by printing their stories on so-called broadsheets to minimize the number of sheets required.  This tax law was abolished in 1855 but newspapers just continued printing on the impractically large sheets of paper.

    Many practices and habits are like that; they once started for perfectly good reasons but then companies just continued doing it that way, even when circumstances changed. Take time to think it through, and ask yourself: Do I really understand why we (still) do it this way? If you can’t answer this question, I am pretty sure it can be done better.

    5. What might be the long-term consequences?

    The final question to ask yourself, when carefully reflecting on your company’s strategy and organization, is what could possibly be the long-term consequences of your key strategic actions. Often we judge things by their short-term results, since these are most salient, and if they look good, persist in our course of action. However, for many strategic actions, the long-term effects may be different.

    Consider a practice adopted by many of the UK’s IVF clinics – of selecting only relatively easy patients to treat, in order to boost short-term success rates (measured in terms of number of births resulting from the treatment). The practice seems to make commercial sense, because it (initially) makes a clinic look good in the industry’s “League Table.” But, as my research with Mihaela Stan from University College London showed, it backfires in the long run because it deprives an organization of valuable learning opportunities which in the long run leads to a lower relative success rate.

    When you start a new strategy or practice it is of course impossible to measure such long-term consequences ex-ante, however, you can think them through. For instance, when we asked various medical professionals in these clinics what might be the benefits of treating difficult patients, they could understand and articulate the learning effects very well. They could not measure them, but with some careful thought they could understand the potential long-term consequences before even engaging in the strategic action. Actions often have different effects in the short and long run. Sit down and think them through.

    Strategy, by definition, is about making complex decisions under uncertainty, with substantive, long-term consequences. Therefore, it requires substantial periods of careful, undisturbed reflection and consideration. Don’t just accept the situation and business constellation you have arrived at. Leadership is not just about doing things, it is also about thinking. Make time for it.

    Fuente: Harvard Business Review

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    TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
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      Consultas al email: mamc.latam@gmail.com
      ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


      .·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
      Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en University of California at Berkeley y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
      Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
      Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
      Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
      Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en 
      The George Washington University (Washington DC)
      CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
      TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
      TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
      TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
      Skype: medinacasabella


      MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
      (mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
      es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
      soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

      Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
      Management Estratégico,
      Gestión del Cambio,
      Marketing Estratégico,
      Inversiones,
      Gestión Educativa,
      Capacitación

      de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

      a) Industria y Servicios,
      b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
      c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
      Posted by at No comments:
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      Friday, November 24, 2017

      You’ve got the Talent. How do you get them to Innovate?
      by C.J. Prince


      Even when great ideas happen at legacy companies, smaller, more nimble players typically can outpace them in the race to market because their internal structures are less hierarchical and built on meritocracy. “Unlike a startup where the best idea can be tested and then rise to the top, that just isn’t true for a large company that’s been in existence for a while, like General Motors”, says Michael Arena, GM’s chief talent officer. Successful innovation is the result of the right people connecting at the right time, and then others buying into and championing the new idea. “The social dynamics matter as much as the idea itself”, Arena says.

      Legacy companies must act like startups by creating the right social dynamics and an environment that allows innovation to emerge naturally, rather than creating innovation incubators or siloed groups devoted to innovating. “Innovation hardly ever happens deep inside one team. It almost always happens at the collision point between two different teams, or as one internal team’s network connects with a network outside the company”, says Arena, noting that General Motors has been shifting toward this kind of “social capital” structure and away from a human capital structure.

      Arena points to three roles that are critical for innovation to take place at larger, legacy companies:
      1. Brokers introduce new ideas. “These are the wild-thinking people who are out there playing on the fringe. They’re curious and out there trying to discover new things. They’re essential to the process of innovation”, says Arena. But in the larger, legacy company, those people aren’t enough. “We’ve all seen bold beautiful ideas that never saw the light of day”.
      2. Connectors execute on those ideas and get them implemented. They are able to get buy-in from local groups inside the organization because they excel at engendering trust.
      3. Energizers are the individuals that spark the interest of others across the organization and unleash the passion necessary for those innovations to advance, says Arena. “CEOs are almost never energizers. They hold the purse strings and have to say ‘no’ more often than ‘yes’”. But that’s okay, Arena adds. That isn’t their role. “CEOs play less a role in innovation than we think they should. When it comes to innovation, leadership is overrated”.
      Instead, CEOs should focus on talent development and making sure all three roles are represented well inside the company. They also should be creating an environment in which people feel comfortable experimenting. “If a CEO is only worried about execution and driving efficiencies and bottom-line results, they create very tight systems”, Arena says. “The CEO has to loosen the system so that people can engage and build new ideas”.

      Fuente: Chief Executive

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      TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
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        Consultas al email: mamc.latam@gmail.com
        ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


        .·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
        Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en University of California at Berkeley y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
        Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
        Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
        Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
        Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en 
        The George Washington University (Washington DC)
        CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
        TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
        TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
        TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
        Skype: medinacasabella


        MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
        (mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
        es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
        soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

        Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
        Management Estratégico,
        Gestión del Cambio,
        Marketing Estratégico,
        Inversiones,
        Gestión Educativa,
        Capacitación

        de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

        a) Industria y Servicios,
        b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
        c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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        Thursday, November 16, 2017

        Startup Accelerators have become more popular in Emerging Markets
        by Peter Roberts and Randall Kempner


        For decades, we have heard that emerging markets are poised for huge growth that will yield even greater prosperity. But a long list of obstacles always seems to be getting in the way of realizing this potential. Startup accelerator programs have been touted as one path to faster progress. Much like their famed Silicon Valley counterparts, emerging market accelerators aim to boost startups’ potential for raising growth capital. We wanted to examine whether the boost that accelerators give in emerging market contexts is different from similar programs in North America or Europe. Our research shows that the effects of acceleration are remarkably similar for entrepreneurs across countries and even continents. Unfortunately, mismatched goals between investors and entrepreneurs as well as a potential cultural bias may both prove to limit the positive effect that accelerators have in emerging market contexts. Regardless, accelerators still have an important role to play that can help position entrepreneurs for success.

        When we began collecting data in 2013 to explore differences between startup acceleration in emerging markets and in high-income countries, we expected stark differences. Business environments in most emerging markets are complex and can be difficult for even the most experienced entrepreneur to navigate. So while running any startup is tough, we assumed that launching a new business in Mombasa would be much more difficult than running one in Menlo Park. However, we were surprised to find far fewer differences in the effects of acceleration than we had expected.

        Our most recent report with data on over 2,000 ventures from 42 accelerator programs, shows that across country settings, accelerated ventures grow at significantly higher rates compared to ventures that applied but were not accepted into the accelerator program. Surprisingly (to us anyway), the average effects of acceleration on equity and debt raised were nearly identical in emerging market and high-income country contexts.

        We were also surprised to find that emerging market ventures are typically older than startups applying to accelerator programs in high-income countries, are earning more revenue, and have hired more employees. Despite this, ventures in high-income countries attract roughly twice as much early stage investment as these promising emerging market ventures. Without acceleration, emerging market ventures are simply not able to attract the investment that is consistent with their underlying promise. And while emerging market accelerators programs are similarly effective at pushing capital into their ventures, acceleration alone is not closing this investment gap.

        In interviews, investors in both emerging market and high-income country settings consistently report having more difficulty sourcing quality deals in emerging markets. Nearly all pointed to both the quality of the founding teams and HR risk as important factors — regardless of where the venture is based. However, at least on paper, emerging-market entrepreneurs are just as experienced and committed as high-income country entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurs from emerging-market country contexts typically have the same or higher levels of education, work experience, and prior entrepreneurial experience as their high-income peers at the time of application. Yet, investors still report a lack of commitment and entrepreneurial experience in these entrepreneurs, which they say makes it difficult to invest in some markets compared to others.

        Based on these findings, we believe that a main challenge when it comes to spurring early-stage investment in emerging markets may not be the actual quality of entrepreneurs, but perceptions about their quality and potential. Here are some suggestions that might help accelerator programs in those countries to better support these entrepreneurs.

        It’s not all about venture funding. Accelerator programs are most successful when they provide the right help to the right people. Our research indicates that many emerging market entrepreneurs prioritize building their skill set or refining their product and marketing strategy over connecting with potential investors. In addition, while they are seeking to grow their businesses (and are investing as much of their own money on average as U.S. entrepreneurs, just over $50,000) they typically seek more modest amounts of outside investment and are not typically working towards an acquisition or IPO.

        Accelerators should take the time to understand and align with these entrepreneurs’ needs and recognize that not all startups require venture capital funding right away. The most successful accelerators identify the respective entrepreneur’s specific financing needs rather than assuming that there is one path to success and scale.

        When it is about venture funding, hone in on the best matches. When entrepreneurs are ready for investment, accelerators should do the work to make sure the right investors are in the room. They should also ensure that this investor access is more than a cursory pitch. As one entrepreneurship expert suggests, “Pitch sessions might be fun, but curated matchmaking may be more useful.” Accelerators need to understand exactly what investors are looking for and actively match pipeline for them, not just arrange for pitch sessions en masse.

        Finding talent is critical. Beyond thoughtful investor introductions, helping entrepreneurs handle hiring and HR is an area where accelerators can be extremely helpful. Accelerators should help start-ups develop a talent strategy alongside their financial strategy. Whether it’s attracting founders or focusing on first hires, it’s important that entrepreneurs have a clear plan to attract and retain the best talent. Organizations like Open Capital Advisors, the Amani Institute, Shortlist, Creative Metier, and Village Capital are all developing tools to address talent issues in emerging markets, and many of those tools are free or open source.

        Acknowledge implicit bias. One of the more complicated issues accelerators need to manage may be investors’ implicit bias. It’s no secret that gender biases affect investment decisions, in both high-income and emerging markets. Investors in emerging markets must also become aware of similar implicit biases that lead them to under-value entrepreneur credentials or misinterpret cross-cultural communication styles. In the latter respect, one of the acceleration experts whom we interviewed said, “We’ve seen that foreign (typically U.S.-based) investors in emerging markets find it easier to invest in expat founders because of cultural ease. They may even overlook key risks — such as lack of work permits or weak business track record — because among expat entrepreneurs the pitch is polished, confidence is high, and there is no language barrier”.

        Our previous research corroborates this view. We found that in emerging markets, “transplant” founders raised twice the amount of equity than “local” (native-born) founders had. Other research has shown that for investors evaluating a pitch, business fundamentals matter less than their perception of character and trustworthiness, and the entrepreneur’s openness to feedback. Accelerators should consider modifying the standard pitch-session approach and find ways for the true potential of emerging market ventures to be appreciated.

        We are excited by these initial findings. Our research indicates that accelerators have the potential to spur more growth but need to be aware of what can hamper investment in emerging market entrepreneurs. To level the playing field in a global marketplace, accelerators are in a unique position to help investors and entrepreneurs better connect and by doing so combat biased perceptions that cause misalignment in the first place.

        Fuente: Harvard Business Review

        Haciendo click en cada uno de los links siguientes, Contenidos de nuestros 
        TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
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          Consultas al email: mamc.latam@gmail.com
          ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


          .·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
          Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en University of California at Berkeley y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
          Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
          Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
          Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
          Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en 
          The George Washington University (Washington DC)
          CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
          TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
          TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
          TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
          Skype: medinacasabella


          MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
          (mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
          es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
          soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

          Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
          Management Estratégico,
          Gestión del Cambio,
          Marketing Estratégico,
          Inversiones,
          Gestión Educativa,
          Capacitación

          de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

          a) Industria y Servicios,
          b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
          c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
          Posted by at No comments:
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