“High-performing companies recognize that leadership is about more than just steering the business. It’s about nurturing, energizing, and challenging the people who help make it run — and who keep it competitive,” write Rainer Strack and four co-authors of the exhaustive Boston Consulting Group study, Realizing the Value of People Management.To sustain success, the BCG consultants say, “a company needs leaders who care about and develop their people — leaders who understand that building a talent pipeline should extend beyond successors to top management to include everyone whose contributions are essential to the company’s future.” So, what specifically do high-performing companies do differently? Here’s a start:
- They are 1.5 times more likely than average to have in place a leadership model that describes expected contributions and behavior and that is grounded in company values.
- They make leaders’ compensation and career advancement dependent in part on leaders’ people-development efforts — 3.4 times as often as low-performing companies do.
Ten Ways to Inhibit Innovation (HBR.org)
“Every company is looking for the magic formula that will produce breakthrough products and services,” writes Ron Ashkenas. “But a better starting point is to think about what gets in the way of innovation.” In his HBR blog post (which has a pub date of a couple of weeks ago, but we don’t want you to miss it), Ashkenas lists 10 common inhibitors and how to address them. Here are the first five:
- Our focus on short-term results drives out ideas that take longer to mature.
- Fear of cannibalizing current business prevents investment in new areas.
- Most of our resources are devoted to day-to-day business so that few remain for innovative prospects.
- Innovation is someone else’s job and not part of everyone’s responsibilities.
- Our efficiency focus eliminates free time for fresh thinking.
