Innehållsförteckning för 2/2022 från I by IMD

A glance at the headlines and it's easy to feel powerless. Russia's war against Ukraine has been raging for months, inflicting unspeakable suffering and threatening a global food crisis. COVID-19 is far from over as cities in China endure lockdowns and supply chains remain strained. Record temperatures in India remind us that the climate crisis has become a full-fledged emergency. It would be easy to feel powerless, to believe that only those at the top, those at the pinnacle of government and business, have the ability to cure these ills. However, as this sixth issue of I by IMD shows, power is not about hierarchy or status. Power is an attitude. And perhaps the most important job of a leader is to empower others, to give them the confidence to…

Who is eligible? Ukraine permits surrogacy for heterosexual married couples. To use a surrogate in Ukraine there must be a medical reason why you cannot carry a child. Some of my clients have become infertile due to cancer; others would risk their lives by becoming pregnant; one woman didn’t have a uterus. How much does it cost? Our packages cost between $51,000 and $85,000 dollars for a guaranteed service which includes unlimited egg donations, IVF cycles and embryo transfers until a successful birth. For comparison, surrogacy in the US with everything included can cost between $120,000 and $250,000. How does the process work? Unlike fertility clinics, we conduct extensive tests and get second opinions from doctors to evaluate their chance of conceiving. This analysis is free and unbinding. Once they…

In Power, for All, we tell the stories of many people who were in a challenging situation and yet uncovered what people uniquely valued in those circumstances. They accomplished fantastic things, not only for the benefit of the company, but also for the benefit of the employees by giving them a better way to do their work and a better way to live. And this can be wonderfully fulfilling, because we spend so much time in our organizations and we need to make that time meaningful.. One of these stories is particularly informative. It talks about a young manager who graduates with an MBA and gets a job as a strategic advisor to the call centers of the organization employing him. Strategic advisor is not the kind of role that…

Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood by Claire Hoffman ABOUT THE BOOK: “In this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ‘90s-a fascinating, disturbing look at a fringe culture and its true believers.” WHY WE LIKE IT: “As someone from (1) an Indian background and (2) interested in mindfulness meditation and how this practice is being shaped in the modern world, Claire Hoffman's book provides a fascinating insight into how the business of spiritualism defines the lives and livelihood of people that come within the ambit of a certain school of practice.” Anand Narasimhan, Shell Professor of Global Leadership Calling Bullsh*t: the Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven…

Lucrèce Foufopoulos • Master of Science degrees in Materials Sciences from Ghent University(1991) and Polymers and Composites Engineering from the Leuven University (1992). • Hired by Tyco in 1992 for a research and development assignment in Belgium and California before moving to Brussels as EU Application and Technical Service Manager in the firm's Ultratec division. • Recruited by Dow Corning in 1996, initially as a program leader. Took on a series of global marketing roles before being named Global General Manager of the firm's paper and packaging business. • Joined Rohm and Haas as Strategic Planning Director in 2008 and moved into Dow Chemical in 2009 following Dow's takeover of Rohm and Haas. • Worked at Eastman Chemical (2014-2018), initially as Corporate Vice President Marketing and Sales and then as…

Chance helps people use the superpower of influence as a force for good. Even if they don't think they have much power, she says they can make a big difference in the world. "I believe influence can help move the needle towards climate solutions, improving public health and eliminating, eventually, gun violence and figuring out solutions to wars and help for people who are suffering in them," she said. While leaders can exert influence on an individual level, they can also scale it up. "The real powerthat we have to end these massive, global challenges that we have is our collective action. And the skill that we need for organizing is interpersonal influence," she said. For instance, she is donating half the profits from her book towards climate change. Readers…

It’s clear that the market is experiencing a seismic shift and we need to react accordingly,” wrote Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently. The shift is in the collapse of tech stocks which have plunged since the beginning of this year. Nasdaq has lost more than a quarter of its value. From Netflix to Spotify, from Coinbase to Robinhood, all have lost 60% from their peak. It’s in this environment that Khosrowshahi said he’ll slash Uber’s marketing spend and freeze hiring. Much of the acceleration by tech companies during the pandemic seems to have halted. Not only are people starting to return to the office, but also the cheap money and government stimulus packages are drying up. The war in Ukraine and the rise of commodity prices have triggered a deep…

Over the past three decades, socially responsible investing has shifted from the periphery to the very center of the capital markets under the banner of ESG. “Environmental, Social and Governance” describes a set of measures used to evaluate company commitments as well as a philosophy of investing. Trillions of dollars have been invested in ESG mutual funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in recent years. ESG funds often implement a screen such that they only invest in corporations that exceed some threshold on ESG metrics. They may also use ESG criteria in how they vote their shares. ESG is big business: according to Bloomberg, "one in four of every professionally invested US dollars is tied to environmental, social and governance criteria." There are many alternative ESG evaluators and hundreds of competing…

[Technology] Last year, organizations created 74 zettabytes of data, equivalent to a trillion gigabytes. To put this into context, an HD movie typically takes up a gigabyte of space on a computer's hard drive. Yet only about 5% of organizations end up making decisions that add value using this data. The reasons come down to a lack of workable data, as well as broader mistrust and fear of data among employees. First, companies often lack the right infrastructure and tools to correctly organize the data they need. For example, they might want to send discount vouchers to customers to encourage them to buy more of a certain product, but the data on customer purchases and the data on pricing may be hidden away on separate servers. Without access to the…

For more than a decade, we have examined the impact of representation among senior leaders - on the board and in the C-suite - on organizational performance. How does appointing white women as well as men and women of color to senior leadership roles change how organizations do business? We define performance expansively to include a range of outcomes that stakeholders care about: innovation, product strength, community relations, equity and diversity records, environmental sustainability and governance. Our findings are clear: more inclusive organizations are more innovative, more profitable, more equitable, more sustainable, better governed and enjoy stronger relationships with their communities and suppliers. By contrast, firms that fail to prioritize inclusion and equity pay a high cost. They suffer from lower job satisfaction and worker engagement, along with higher rates…

Power often gets a bad rap. We think of dictators who unleash destructive power to serve themselves and their own financial interests. Or domineering bosses who use threats and fear to coerce staff into working long hours. Yet power can also be a force for good if exercised positively. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, for example, has used her power to build trust with people by being empathetic, daring, humble and consistent. Within the world of business, power has often been associated with a “command and control” style of leadership. For any micro-managers still hankering towards total authority, the pandemic should have been the final wake-up call that this type of leadership no longer works. A big lesson from the past two years is that people want…

The basic principle of disruption is that innovators come from the outside of a given industry and capture a market dominated by incumbents. In the world of cryptocurrencies, this all happened when the disruptors - the non-permission blockchains and their cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH) and cardano (ADA) - rocked the boat of the central bank incumbents. For centuries, central banks worked as monopolies in the issuance of currency in their markets. Money is a strange asset; its physical value (that of the notes and coins on which it is printed) does not necessarily deteriorate overtime, but its integral value does. This comes down to risk, uncertainty and the basic principle of the time value of money, which is that money today is worth more than money tomorrow.…

Should your company adopt a competitive strategy proposed by a passionate, unconventional, lonely genius? The lonely genius might blaze a trail to brilliant triumph. On the other hand, there might be a good reason why the genius is lonely. Or should your company trust the wisdom of crowd? Surely a strategy must be good if it attracts a whole crowd. It’s not groupthink, it’s consensus. Then again, the very fact that there’s a whole crowd suggests that your company won’t gain unique competitive advantage. IDENTIFYING LONERS AND CROWDS I run an ongoing experiment that sheds light on the lonely genius versus the wise crowd. More than 2,000 people - executives, managers, professors, students and consultants - around the world have designed pricing strategies for three generic industries in the Top…

$10 trillion How much IBM estimates that cybercrime globally could drain annually from the business economy by 2025. 304.7 million The number of attacks were reported by Threatpost/Cybereason in the first half of 2021 a year-over-year increase of 151%. $570,000 The average ransom demanded for 2021 as estimated by GRC World Forums. The figure is five times greater than the year before. $352,000 The average cost of a ransomware incident for small to medium-sized enterprises, according to a survey by RSM US LLP. 55% + of ransomware claims have occurred since 2020 and activity is accelerating, according to Net Diligence Cyber Claims Study, a report detailing actual losses for data breaches.…

A technology-driven future will require very different organizations, business models, skills and perspectives. Looking back over the opening decades of the 21st century, the first included the dot-com era and was a period of entrepreneurial discovery of the business models made possible by the internet. In the second, there were huge strides in artificial intelligence, augmented reality and more. Now, in the third decade, the challenge becomes more human: we must create organizations and ways of working which both harness technology and maximize humanity. This process of “radical reshaping” will inevitably fall to Generation Z, the digital natives born somewhere between 1998 and 2016. According to one estimate, Gen Z will make up nearly a third of the global workforce within the next eight years. In the US alone, this…

[Human Recources] Many leaders struggle with gaining insight into what their teams really want. They find it difficult because the power that comes from their rank and authority often creates a distance and mistrust that prevents people from opening up. This decreases the leader's motivation to pay sufficient attention to them. Yet it is essential for you to uncover what matters to people so that you can become a better leader. It's a matter of responsibility and of power. As we define it, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others. But what determines this ability? The answer is surprisingly simple. What enables one person to influence another is control over access to resources that the other person values. Take this idea seriously, and you will realize that…

1. Inclusion is a numbers game Moving beyond token representation - "one and done" and "twokenism" - is vital. Tokenism increases performance pressures, scrutiny and surveillance, and the burden of doubt. Individuals in highly visible token leadership roles cannot do their best work - and we need their best work to solve the challenges of today's organizations. 2. Transparency allows inclusion to flourish Transparency is a powerful tool for disrupting bias. Without it, evaluators tend to apply variable criteria to candidates. Be transparent about the criteria for hiring, compensation and promotion and apply the same criteria to every candidate. 3. Accountability reduces bias and fosters creative problem solving All individuals responsible for evaluating others must be accountable for the methods and criteria they use. Anyone conducting evaluations for hiring, performance,…

Imagine your company having full engagement at every layer of the organization from the shop floor to the executive suite. Who wouldn‘t want that? But despite the appeal, many leaders resist taking the necessary steps to make it possible. Ask yourself the following to identify whether you are resisting an inclusive strategy. 1. Do you believe that including all levels of employees in crafting your strategy would be too time consuming? If you answered yes, consider the value of ensuring that staff are clear and invested in the strategy, and come to work energized to implement it. 2. Are you worried an inclusive strategy will mean it becomes harder to make quick decisions in times of crisis? Evidence suggests companies losing millions during the 2008 crisis still successfully used inclusive…

[Sustainability] The world will only be able to continue enjoying the benefits of plastics if the industry tackles the huge problem of plastic waste as part of its drive to become carbon neutral by 2050, says Lucrèce Foufopoulos, Executive Vice President Polyolefins and Innovation & Technology at plastics group Borealis. She urges talented young people tojointhe plastics industry to help tackle its environmental challenges. "To preserve the future of the industry, we have to take care of the waste problem and transition the system to a net-zero future. Then we will be able to continue enjoying the benefits of plastics in a responsible way," Foufopoulossaid in an interview. Some 24.5 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated in Europe in 2020, and the bulk of this was incinerated, sent to…

• Define “success” explicitly and don’t assume that everyone already knows. • Avoid extrapolating the past into the future, and don’t reduce success or failure to a single action. • Remember that a spreadsheet is not a strategy, it’s the result of a strategy. • Make it safe for people to share disconfirming evidence and challenge happy assumptions. • Ask strategic-due-diligence questions. What could make your strategy fail? What unintended consequences might you trigger? If you were a competitor, what would you do?…

1 Limitless global addressable market of repeat, mostly quick paying customers at rising price points. 2 Entire business operation can be outsourced “as-a-service” to reduce risk or liability and can operate tax-free from anywhere, with no office expenses. 3 Payments in cryptocurrency are near instantaneous. Your brand may not be popular, but anonymity and flexible work-from-anywhere schedule makes up for absence of personal recognition. 4 On the negative side, there is stiff competition from rival brands and the potential for interruption by the FBI or Europol. 5 Past returns are no guarantee of future performance.…

Most complex problems can be solved in as little as five minutes with the appropriate techniques. In Solvable: A Simple Solution to Complex Problems, Arnaud Chevallier, Professor of Strategy and Decision Making at IMD, and Albrecht Enders, Professor of Strategy and Innovation at IMD, synthesize research from the fields of management, psychology, design and engineering, breaking down problem-solving into three simple steps: 1. FRAME: What is the problem? Define the issue and synthesize it into a single overarching key question. 2. EXPLORE: How might I solve the problem? Identify possible answers to the question and the criteria that will help you decide how much you like each option. 3. DECIDE: How should I solve the problem? Isolate which alternative, on balance, you prefer. Solvable equips leaders with practical, evidence-based tools…