Category Archives: Leadership

Business, Innovation, Leadership, Management

Corporate Tolerance with Innovation

One of the directly associated problems with innovation, is that a company can tolerate letdown for small ventures, but can’t bear setback for a big one. Accordingly, we can notice Ford, an automobile giant which undertakes loads of tests and trials in order to make failure tolerable. The cause behind making failure acceptable, is due to the risky nature of innovation.

In line with preceding notion, it is worthy to mention that people appear to overlook Apple’s first phone, the Rokr, the one which was extremely catastrophic that even Steve Jobs himself decided to kill it immediately. Nevertheless, what Apple did learn from that experience helped them to lay-down a solid bedrock for the forthcoming series of innovations.

Unfortunately to that, in most other companies, if they would fail with the first attempted product release, it will most probably end up with firing the majority if not all involved individuals. In further extreme scenarios, the firing decision can be followed with a call to leave that sought-after market segment. And if Jobs had the same mentality, then the world would have never had the opportunity to enjoy the smartness and elegance of the iPhone (Enderle, 2016).

Reference:

Enderle, R., (2016), ‘How Ford’s approach to innovation could help Apple‘. CIO Portal. Available online from: http://www.cio.com/article/3020263/innovation/how-ford-s-approach-to-innovation-could-help-apple.html.

Business, Leadership, Management

Be the Same Boss in Stressful Times That You Are in Calm Times

How would your direct reports describe your behavior under pressure? Many bosses become emotional, controlling, and close-minded — which can have a hugely negative impact on their team’s morale and productivity. To lead effectively when the pressure is on, think about the team dynamic you want to build over the long term. Then think about whether your stress-driven actions support that dynamic or undermine it. For example, in normal circumstances you wouldn’t try to motivate people with fear or threats, so don’t do it during stressful times, either. Talk to your team about why you’re under pressure and what you need from them, and thank them in advance for putting in extra effort. And normally you wouldn’t get angry or shut down in tense conversations, so don’t let stress keep you from listening to others and engaging thoughtfully. Once this period of stress is over, your team will remember how you led during it — so make sure their memories are positive.

Adapted from “When Managers Break Down Under Pressure, So Do Their Teams,” by David Maxfield and Justin Hale.

Business, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Operations Management, Technology

Being Disruptive

Layton Christensen (2015, p.150) who is being broadly viewed as world’s principal management guru of recent times, had portrayed disruption as a diagram with both vertical and horizontal axes, with every industry having a unique metric on the vertical axis. For instance, in the airline industry, the vertical axis represents routes’ length that would ultimately measure their success. And for any airline company, they would prefer longer routes than shorter ones which is obviously due to profitability reasons. Consequently, giant airliners do focus on their business modeling, promotions and marketing campaigns on the long destinations, that has led new entrants like Ryan Air in Europe and Southwest in the United States to seize the opportunity and disrupt the area that was neglected by industry leaders, which is exactly the way that disruption basically happens.

While in the Information Technology sector, then Christensen highlighted that the vertical axis in their case is the magnitude of engagement, along with the growth potential with involved clients, where usually large IT firms focus more on big accounts and clients due to the same profitability reason mentioned in the earlier example. Consequently, the room will be opened for smaller IT players to grasp the market with less attention, and try to do the disruption there.

Reference:

Christensen, C. (2015), ‘Disruptive Innovation is a Strategy, Not Just the Technology’, Business Today, 23, 26, pp. 150-158, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost. Available online from: https://goo.gl/7aFBnI.

Business, Innovation, Leadership, Management

The Top 3 Innovation Measurement Traps :

The first trap is to have a list of limited measurements, with the majority of companies sticking with only 1, in a time there is no magical innovation measurement model up to this very minute that can give a holistic insight over the health state of the ongoing investment. Thus, it will be much more prudent to have a blended flavor of multiple metrics, that will increase management’s awareness and minimize uncertainty along with associated risks.

Moving to the second trap, that is primarily through having an environment that encourages a sustainable behavior of paying too much attention on those innovations that promise highest incremental inflows, which is inadequate for corporations seeking momentous growth.

The third trap is basically when the management outweighs inputs versus outputs. And to put that point into further context, we can refer to the 2006 study for U.S. companies with largest R&D budgets, to find Ford on the top of that list, but without a trace when it comes to the list of most innovative companies. Thus, results and outcomes do matter a lot.

Reference:

Jaruzelski, B., Dehoff, K. and Bordia, R., (2006), ‘Smart Spenders: The Global Innovation 1000’. Booz & Company. Available online from: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/06405?gko=48133.

Business, Digital Transformation, Leadership, Management, Technology

Digital Transformation and Change Management Practices in Qatari Organizations

I have developed this research to primarily look at identifying and assessing the incorporated challenges as part of the digital transformation and change management practices in Qatari organizations. The outcomes of this research intend to supply the necessary techniques to smooth the journey of change management from the inception stage all the way through execution, completion, and acceptance by the users and business. Furthermore, this research seeks to shed light on a set of influential methods that would help in ensuring a solid transition during and after the digital transformation journey of implementation and operation, with the minimum volume of hiccups and unforeseen risks.

Additionally, this work highlights the urgency of following one of the most nowadays business necessities, which without it, present firms might end up facing a significant struggle to survive and adapt to the new influencing factors of the modern business. Thus, this research covers the benefits of the inclusive digital shift, but without ignoring the extent of necessary conditions, starting with the comprehensive digital strategy, all the way down to the adopted change and project management frameworks, along with the imperative procedures to ensure effective rollout and successful business adoption.

As part of the key findings of this study, business leaders and IT executives must realize the criticality of setting rational and right perceptions for both the leadership as well as employees. Business leaders must evaluate some influential dynamics carefully to observe in which manner their companies can closely align them with the overall digital transformation process. Those dynamics must consider four dimensions: competition, corporate, customer and leadership.

Moreover, IT executives are supposed to utilize their role for the benefit of the business, therefore adding value. They must eagerly try to highlight the set of opportunities and challenges in an engaging manner that can release positive energy. Nevertheless, the corporate culture has a substantial role in discovering the appropriate balance, and IT executives should generally outline their leadership profile for the sake to make the most out of their influence whether it is boosting innovation, leveraging interdependence or even leading from behind, to align it with the executive team (Bongiorno et al. 2017).

Digital Transformation & Change Management Practices in Qatari OrganizationsDownload
Business, Leadership, Management

Cultural Traits That Can Empower You For the Role of Global Leadership

Global leaders should realize that they are obliged to enforce the sense of responsibility into their organizational structures, and cascade that down in order for their managers to start taking accountability for constructing an inclusive and diversified work space. Nevertheless, what is generally observed is that top successful executives do say and act properly when it comes to the actual perspective of diversity, yet their second level of management, the one that literally orchestrates the daily operations and develop the practice of staff that work there, do not recognize and do not feel responsible for cultural inclusion and diversity. Thus, what is significant for every global leader is to recognize the applicable cultural measures, scale them properly, and consequently concentrate on the mechanism of evaluating staff that are in charge of implementing them. The mission is not relevant to developing new diverse cultural dimensions as much as utilizing variance in order to scrutinize the efficiency of present measures (Fitzhugh, 2011).

Efficient management of workers’ cultural diversity is another significant factor in ensuring success for internationally operating organizations. Accordingly, global managers who consider working in cross-cultural environments should deliberate that as a challenging occasion for corporation’s progress and improvement of working individuals. Furthermore, and in order for global managers to cope with the associated rise of variations, global business mentors and architects must react promptly to the influences of globalization, demographic structures, and technology for the sake to propose explicit improvements on global leadership related traits (Chuang, 2013).

Following the earlier said, competent and resourceful leaders who pursue their target of running a global corporation should significantly enhance their competences to effectively cope with the difficulty of managing individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. Accordingly, they should apprehend and dignify variances, undertake essential alteration to the adopted methods of leadership, as well as being equipped for accompanied challenges and opportunities as part of the experience. Hence, leaders are the furthermost dominant element to achieve highest levels of performance, and it is decisive to back leaders by the specialists of human resources improvement for the sake to settle culturally varied matters via leadership improvement (Byrd, 2007).

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References:

Byrd, M. (2007) ‘Educating and Developing Leaders of Racially Diverse Organizations’, Human Resource Development Quarterly, 18, 2, pp. 275-279.

Chuang, S.F. (2013) ‘Essential Skills for Leadership Effectiveness in Diverse Workplace Development’. Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development. Available online from: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=ojwed.

Fitzhugh, N. (2011) ‘What Do Leaders Need To Understand About Diversity’, Yale Insights – School of Management. Available online from: http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-do-leaders-need-to-understand-about-diversity.

Business, Digital Transformation, Leadership, Management, Technology

Change Management

Change must be effectively articulated, passionately owned, and persistently driven to completion (Tichy & Charan, 1989). Employees must be part of the change, know exactly where the company is heading, why it is going there and what is in it for them once they get to the final stop.

People usually hate the change. Thus they shall be encouraged and enlightened about the overall journey the company is willing to take (JWMI, 2015). Change management is the course that helps employees embrace new practices of doing business, and it is certainly not an easy path.

References:

JWMI (2015) What is the role of a leader? [Online]. Jack Welch Management Institute. Available at: https://goo.gl/BNanBL.

Tichy, N. & Charan, R. (1989) Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch [Online]. Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://goo.gl/5OCc24.

Business, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Operations Management, Technology

Business Digitization

Business digitization is not just the concern of the IT executives; it is strategically significant and serious to business leadership that should take a strong stand through adjacently running both the operations and technology. Considering this, once things are concerned with digitizing business processes, company’s leadership is generally accountable for managing and controlling the transformation.

As a result, digital transformation is becoming more of a management concern, which where it should be. Digital transformation at the same time shall consider agility and speed as fundamental factors whenever business processes are being evaluated and re-engineered. Business operations and processes are supposed to be transformed radically and operate faster, become more secure, and more resilient (Hottges, 2017).

References:

Hottges, T. (2017) ‘Digital Transformation Is a Management Issue’, Abolhassan, F. (ed.) The Drivers of Digital Transformation. Switzerland: Springer, p. 8. (Accessed: 8 November 2018).

Innovation, Leadership, Management, Operations Management

The prominence of sustainability in insuring company’s success

Accenture and back in 2010 surveyed more than 700 global executives, from which 93% have firmly admitted the prominence of sustainability in insuring the future success of their companies. Accordingly, the vision of integrating sustainable strategies into companies’ strategic endeavors is in the heart of most global corporations, but varies between those who just have it on papers, partially applied it and companies that lead the domain of sustainable strategies similar to Dow Chemical, Nestle, General Electric and Walmart. The majority of organizations that work on generating value out of sustainability will initially consider the required measures to increase profits on capital, which commonly signifies decreasing operating expenses via enhancing the management of natural resource, similar to waste and energy usage. Corporations can as well work on cutting unnecessary operational expenses through methodically supervising their value chains. Moreover, organizations might bring more value thru enhancing workers’ motivation or retention by embracing activities with sustainable nature or through increasing prices or attaining greater share of market by employing current or new sustainable products (Bertels 2010).

Organizations that thoroughly follow sustainability are as well repeatedly reexamining their business portfolios for the sake to define the probable influence of developments, similar to present or probable environmental or trade regulations, which might lead to different development of market prospects. Waste management, for instance, rediscovered itself as a supplier of incorporated ecological contributions through totaling waste to energy and waste decrease solutions to its portfolio of offerings. Corporations correspondingly scrutinize strictly for unfulfilled necessities generated through sustainability developments in accordance with their strategies, and consequently recognize probable consumer segments. While on the other hand, and speaking of the range of accompanied risks as part of this process, then the improved management of risks that appear from sustainability concerns commences with identifying significant threats of operational disturbances from resource shortage, climate change, or public concerns, similar to commercial boycotts or interruptions in receiving clearance to undertake business operations (Bonini 2011).

For global corporations to develop a sustainable supply chain, they should consider some crucial constraints. The initial and most significant one is the complete backing of the executive team and board of directors, to be followed with a series of changes and enrichments on corporate procedures related to ecological enhancement, as well as to conform to legal ecological necessities, apply to ISO 14001 certification and select adequate suppliers based on ecological benchmarks. Moreover, the management should furnish the atmosphere to cooperate jointly along with suppliers in order to comply with ecofriendly objectives, in addition to allocate adequate resources to develop internal techniques and tools to asses suppliers’ credibility based on ecological standards.

Additionally, the executive team has to cooperatively work with current and potential customers in order to achieve eco-designs and undertake cleaner methods during construction. Furthermore, sustainable supply chain adoption includes the procurement of green technologies and applications, with construction designs that recycle, decrease, reclaim or reprocess energy, resources, or components, along with layouts that decrease or dodge the usage of poisonous or dangerous components (Cucchiella & Koh 2012). Nevertheless, any change experience is going to be encountered with different set of challenges, which will require a solid and proven change management methodology in place. Accordingly, it is essential to recognize the main burdens for adopting sustainable supply chain prior accepting the change. The first burden will be generated from general public, second from government regulations while the third from clients. Without ignoring that the staff working circumstances, ecological and green concerns, corporate social responsibility and sustainability are the main present barriers in front of the sought mission (Malviya & Kant 2017).

References:

Bertels, S. (2010) ‘Embedding Sustainability in Organizational Culture’. Simon Fraser University & Network for Business Sustainability. Available online from: http://nbs.net/wp-content/uploads/Executive-Report-Sustainability-and-corporate-culture.pdf, (Accessed: December 12 2017).

Bonini, S. & Gorner, S. (2011) ‘The Business Of Sustainability: McKinsey Global Survey Results’. McKinsey. Available online from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/the-business-of-sustainability-mckinsey-global-survey-results, (Accessed: December 12 2017).

Cucchiella, F. & Koh, L. (2012) ‘Green Supply Chain: How Do Carbon Management and Sustainable Development Create Competitive Advantage for the Supply Chain?’ N.P.: [Bradford, England]: Emerald Group Pub., 2012. University of Liverpool Catalogue, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: December 12 2017).

Malviya, R. & Kant, R. (2017) ‘Modeling The Enablers Of Green Supply Chain Management’, Benchmarking An International Journal, 24, 2, pp. 536-568, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: December 12 2017).

Innovation, Leadership, Management

Leadership, Innovation and Creativity

Right at the crux of visionary leadership lies the cradle of innovation and creativity, which helps to navigate business’s strategy development and execution towards achieving the sought target and market footprint. Entrepreneurship has an unbreakable bond with creativity, which helps in equipping the needed foundation for startups to gain the necessary pace and momentum, while helps established and developed businesses to sustain and thrive (Amabile & Khaire 2008).

For the sake to develop an atmosphere of creativity and innovative business culture, global leaders must work and on simultaneous basis on three crucial vectors: strategy, staff and leadership. Speaking of strategy, then companies must make it certain that the entire range of administrative hierarchy across all levels are embracing and backing the adoption of innovation and creativity.  Moreover, organizations should foster the principles of flat organizational practices through promoting hierarchal and operational resilience. Workers regardless of their organizational grade must realize how the culture of innovation can increase the levels of flexibility in terms of organizational hierarchy and communication channels. Furthermore, companies must evolve robust and effective communication structures in addition to encourage a pattern of continual change and innovation across the company (Rigby et al., 2009).

Speaking of the staff vector, then corporations are obliged to consider recruiting individuals who are creative and are willing to embrace the challenge of innovation. Foster the risk-raking atmosphere among the working staff. Advocate the spirit of positive and creative reasoning between the workforces, encourage endowment and foster the teamwork. Moving to the third vector, then companies’ leaders must embrace the values of creativeness that are built on the grounds of trust and respect for all the notions and thoughts being received from employees. Nurture the principles of unrestricted support and backing where ordinary employees can feel empowered to speak out their concerns and ideas freely without expecting any subsequent negative impact on them (Wetlaufer, 1997).

In addition to earlier said, companies’ leaders should stimulate the bonds of confidence and faith between employees and their managers. Promote the practice of unit solving practices where team members can collaborate jointly on overcoming difficulties without spending valuable time reverting back to their direct line managers. Such practice can see the light through gradual adoption of decentralized administrative practices across the organization. Additionally, companies should promote substantial encouragement through supplying employees with amusing and motivating assignments. (Catmull, 2008).

Following the previous discussion, the theoretical narrative of fostering creative climate and culture is significantly easier once compared to its tangible practices amongst global and domestic corporations. Both innovation and creativity practically all the time suffer from companies’ identity as well as mentality. Except if, when the company deliberately devotes energies to grip the slowing down forces, innovators and creators will be smashes due to the burden of hierarchy and corporate rules (Laroya 2012). As a result, beating the power draining culture must be one of the most fundamental tasks of global leaders prior setting their sights for achieving an atmosphere of creativity.

References:

Amabile, T. & Khaire, M. (2008) ‘Creativity and the Role of the Leader’. Harvard Business Review, 86 (10), pp. 100-109. Available online from: https://hbr.org/2008/10/creativity-and-the-role-of-the-leader, (Accessed: December 2 2017).

Catmull, E. (2008) ‘How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity’, Harvard Business Review, 86, 9, pp. 64-+, Social Sciences Citation Index, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: December 2 2017).

Laroya, G. (2012) ‘Why the Big-Company Monster Kills Creativity’. Huffington Post. Available online from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gil-laroya/creativity-at-work_b_1971392.html, (Accessed: December 2 2017).

Rigby, D., Gruver, K. & Allen, J. (2009) ‘Innovation in Turbulent Times’, Harvard Business Review, 87, 6, pp. 79-86, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: December 2 2017).

Wetlaufer, S. (1997), ‘What’s Stifling the Creativity at CoolBurst?’, Harvard Business Review, 75, 5, pp. 36-&, Social Sciences Citation Index, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: December 2 2017).