Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2013 från Rotman Management

IF YOU COULD DESIGN an optimal work environment, what characteristics would it include? While there is no definitive list, certain things are bound to appear on most wish lists: a clear strategic vision, an integrity-filled culture; a dedication to innovation; engaged, productive employees; and passionate, authentic leaders. The question is, what can each of us do to move towards this idyllic scenario? As we will show in this issue, plenty. People often say, “It’s not personal — it’s business.” But that simply isn’t true: what happens inside organizations has deep psychological impact on employees. Unfortunately, while many leaders talk about building a strong culture and engaging people in the company’s strategy, in reality, they are more likely to turn their attention to more tangible matters such as finance and operations.…

OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS, we have seen dramatic interest in building sustainable organizations that have the capacity to endure and simultaneously satisfy a triple bottom line of economic, environmental and human performance. Yet, in comparison to the environmental and economic dimensions, substantially less attention has been paid to sustainability’s human dimension. An important mechanism for understanding the human dimension of sustainability is the concept of thriving at work. When thriving, employees are energized to grow and develop, and are creating resources rather than merely depleting resources. In this article, we will describe what it means to thrive and what leaders can do to enable more thriving in the workplace. What It Means to Thrive Thriving individuals are growing, developing and energized, as opposed to stagnating. In workplace terms, thriving…

Congratulations: you’ve made the high-potential list! You are now on HR’s radar and are about to be sucked into the machinery of your company’s accelerated development system. The centerpiece of this likely involves some kind of rotation – a ‘better than random walk’ through a series of assignments designed to test your mettle, provide you with a macro view of the firm and prepare you for top management positions. But before you commence your ascent, consider four traps that can derail even the most promising career. Trap #1: The HiPo Label. Don’t expect a big welcome. Whether the HiPo program is public or not, people can figure out for themselves that you are being parachuted-in and that you are expected to go on to bigger things. This is not exactly…

• Being a good father, unlike being a good mother, is not seen as culturally incompatible with being a good worker. Quite the contrary: being a good provider is seen as an integral part of being a good father. • The ‘work devotion schema’ means that upper-middle class men typically attach great importance to success-related traits such as ambition and a strong work ethic. The flexibility stigma for professional men thus stems in part from the sense that a man who makes caregiving responsibilities salient on the job is less of a man. • In some workplaces, gender wars are emerging about the right way to ‘be a man’, as the breadwinner ideal is contested by a newer ideal of nurturing fatherhood. The rise of the ‘nurturing father ideal’ may…

LEVELS OF STRESS, EXHAUSTION, AND BURNOUT have become increasingly problematic for employees and organizations alike. Understanding how people recover from the demands of work is therefore increasingly important, and is directing a burgeoning area of research in Organizational Behaviour and Workplace Psychology. Work recovery is typically measured as ‘achieving lowered levels of stress and increased well-being’. When recovery is successful, an employee’s well-being improves, and resources drawn upon during the ‘strain process’ are restored. A key area of focus to date has been the study of breaks from work, which include vacations, weekends and end-of-day activities, in relation to job performance, exhaustion and wellbeing. Until recently research in this area has generally ignored employee behaviour during the work day — which is surprising, considering that people spend anywhere from one…

STEVE JOBS’ EXTRAORDINARY STORY of professional achievement was already legendary long before his death on October 5, 2011 at the age of 56. A college dropout, Jobs founded Apple computer with partner Steve Wozniak at the age of 21. By 27, he was one of the world’s youngest millionaires. In 1985, he was forced out by Apple’s board, only to return 11 years later. In the intervening years, he had acquired Pixar animation studios, which Disney bought from him in 2006 for $7 billion. Following his return to Apple, Jobs led the company to phenomenal success, despite ongoing health problems that ultimately claimed his life. Jobs’ unconventional curriculum vitae is illustrative of how professional life is changing: the conception of a career trajectory as a continuous upward progression on a…

Q&A We’ve all heard of literal blind spots; but what is a ‘behavioural blind spot’? These are things that we can’t see about ourselves, but which others do see. When someone tries to give us feedback about a blind spot, we usually reject it as simply wrong — not because we’re being irrationally defensive, but because, to us, it actually seems wrong. It leaves us feeling confused, because we wonder what would cause others to give us feedback that is so off target? Are they jealous, petty, naïve, or political? As we sort through what would motivate the other person to give us such feedback, we move further and further from considering how the feedback might actually be useful to us. What causes blind spots? There are two key causes.…

BEYOND ENGAGEMENT: THE INVOLVED EMPLOYEE AN OLD JOKE GOES, “When it comes to a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the chicken is engaged; but the pig is involved!” Beneath this witticism lies a deeper truth: when we need the very best from our people – when we need them to be ‘all in’ in terms of their commitment — it’s not enough for them to contribute from a distance: we need to provide an opportunity for them to be involved and take ownership for the outcome. When I ask leaders what measurements they pay attention to, they predictably begin by citing quantitative metrics such as revenues and profits. Some will expand their thinking to include evaluating operational and process measures, but without prompting, few ever mention their human assets. It’s…

ADAPTIVE INNOVATION: CREATE, LEARN, REPEAT THE EMERGING ECONOMIES of China, India, Latin America, and Africa contain some of the fastest-moving markets in the world. To survive in these dynamic markets, successful companies have modified their innovation cycles to provide meaningful products more rapidly than ever before. Take the phenomenal growth of Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media company launched in 2009. Originally a Twitter ‘copycat’, today Weibo is a hybrid media company with 300 million users sending an average of 86 million messages a day. How did Weibo catapult itself to success? By launching to learn in an emerging market and iterating products based on real-time feedback. For large, well-established companies, sometimes not adopting an iterative approach to innovation can lead to costly mistakes. Take Nokia, for example — once…

SEVEN NEW FACULTY MEMBERS joined the Rotman School at the start of the 2012/13 academic year, in the areas of Strategic Management, Marketing, Accounting, Finance and Business Economics. Spike Lee joined the School as an assistant professor of Marketing. He is completing a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan. His research focuses on how abstract, complex experience in social domains such as morality and love influence concrete, perceptual experience across the five senses. Chayawat Ornthanalai comes to Rotman as an assistant professor of Finance from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His teaching and research interests lie in the area of asset pricing, credit risk, fixed-income and financial econometrics. Andras Tilcsik joins Rotman as an assistant professor of Strategic Management from Harvard University, where he is completing a…

JAMISON STEEVE HAS BEEN APPOINTED as the new Executive Director of the Lloyd & Delphine Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) at the Rotman School of Management and the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity (ICP). He succeeds James Milway, who left his post last summer. The MPI is world’s leading think-tank on the role of sub-national factors — location, place and city-regions — in global economic prosperity and the ICP serves as the research arm of the Ontario Government’s Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress. The appointment was announced by Dean Roger Martin, who is also the chair of the Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress. “Jamison is an extraordinarily gifted person who will lead the Martin Prosperity Institute and the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity to even…

January 16, 5:00-6:00pm, Toronto Branding Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman Speaker: E. Neville Isdell, former Chair & CEO, The Coca-Cola Company; Vice-Chair, DGM Bank & Trust Inc. and World Wildlife Fund; Corporate Director, General Motors Co. Topic: Inside Coca-Cola: A CEO’s Life Story of Building the World’s Most Popular Brand (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) January 21, 5:00-6:00pm, Toronto Multicultural Banking Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman Sponsor: Rotman MBA Middle East Business Association Speaker: Rania Llewellyn, President & CEO, Roynat Capital; former VP, Multicultural Banking, Scotiabank Topic: Lessons Learned From Designing Customized Banking Solutions for the Various Cultures Within Canada January 24, 5:00-7:00pm, Toronto Marketing Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman Topic: FLUX – What Marketing Managers Need to Navigate the New Environment (Rotman/UTP Publishing, Dec. 2012) 2 Moderators: David Soberman, Canadian…

FOR FAR TOO MANY LEADERS, strategy is a struggle. Despite all the different tools available (or perhaps because of them), strategy can seem mysterious and scary, with huge rewards for success, disastrous implications for failure and many unknown dangers lurking along the way. That needn’t be the case. We believe strategy can be defined and created using a simple framework that entails answering five questions — the same five questions, no matter the type, size or context of the organization: 1. What is your winning aspiration? 2. Where will you play? 3. How will you win? 4. What capabilities must be in place? 5. What management systems are required? The answers to these questions are the fundamental choices every leader must make to craft a successful strategy. Make no mistake…

THE SEARCH FOR THE SECRETS of high performance organizations has been intense in recent years, yielding countless best-selling books and imitators in the process. However, a relatively new quest has emerged on the organizational front, for something that cannot be as easily imitated: a high level of integrity. In large part, this newer quest can be attributed to increasing expectations from society and customers, which have led to lower tolerance for behaviour perceived to be unethical or otherwise inappropriate. Digital communication and social media have only intensified the demand: transgressions are now nearly impossible to hide, and employees increasingly have incentives — and the means — to speak up. When integrity breakdowns occur, they can be extremely costly. Financial service organizations such as UBS and Société Générale have suffered considerable…

THE EVIDENCE IS IN: organizations are embracing flexible working arrangements. According to a recent study, 79 per cent of U.S. firms allow some of their employees, and 37 per cent allow all or most, to periodically change starting or quitting times. But while flexibility programs have become widespread, their usage rates remain low: only 11 per cent of the full-time workforce has a formal agreement with their employer to vary their work hours, while another 18 per cent have an informal agreement. The reason for the low usage rates? Fears of negative career repercussions — fears that appear to be well founded: the use of flexibility policies has been shown to result in wage penalties, lower performance evaluations and fewer promotions. As a result, some flexibility programs appear to be…

THE NATURE OF WORK and careers is poised to change dramatically in the coming years. While there have been shifts in the ways that we work over the last generation, our research increasingly suggests that a qualitative shift could now be taking shape – perhaps of an order of magnitude greater than the outsourcing revolution. At the Institute for the Future, we recently collaborated with the Apollo Research Institute, affiliated with the University of Phoenix, to investigate how big, disruptive shifts are likely to reshape organizations and workplace skills in the future. Certain disruptions came up time and again, chiefly to do with the emergence of new automation technology, including micro-segmentation and plug-and-play robotics. As these creative disruptions take hold, the workers who will be most valuable will be those…

Individual differences play an important role in resource renewal. Managers should pay attention to two personality characteristics in particular: extraversion and neuroticism. Extraversion. This refers to the degree to which people are enthusiastic, talkative, assertive and energetic. Research has found that individuals high on extraversion perceive that they have high and adequate coping abilities; experience more positive emotions and experience daily stressors as challenges. Extraversion may influence the relationship between break activities and resource levels in three ways: 1. Given that extraverts have positive appraisal tendencies, a chore break may not be experienced as highly draining. 2. Extraverts may prefer more social types of respites, such as a group lunch or a coffee break with colleagues. 3. Extraverts may be able, in general, to fend off depletion of personal resources…

You have said that we cannot imagine the future simply by extrapolating from the past. How, then, can we imagine it? The story of the future is a ‘joined up’ story that can only be told from a global perspective, and as a result, the best way to go about imagining it is to look at trends. In our research, my colleagues and I are carefully following 32 distinct trends that cover different aspects of how the future could be shaped. While understanding these trends is important, it is equally important to think about how they interrelate. Often, it’s the relationships between things like demography and technology that will really make a difference. We also have access to 60 multinational companies that we talk to on a regular basis, to…

THE BENEFITS OF EMBRACING CONFLICT Modern organizations are rife with tensions and paradoxes, requiring the people within them to integrate conflicting agendas and contradictory demands on a regular basis. For instance, product developers have to consider cost issues and follow specifications when developing new ideas. Typical reactions to such contradictory demands include a sense of threat, defensiveness, and a tendency to focus on one demand at the expense of the other. To facilitate the integration of conflicting agendas and contradictory demands, individuals can adopt what University of Cincinatti Professor Marianne Lewis calls ‘paradoxical frames’. A paradoxical frame is activated when a problem is identified, its contradictory elements are revealed and explored, and alternative solutions are found and tested. The problem-solver acknowledges the tension between opposing task elements, yet understands that…

In your research, you examine the warning signs that people ignore, leading to bad outcomes. Why don’t people take anomalies in their everyday work seriously when, in retrospect, they look like clear ‘red flags’? The answer has two parts. First, sometimes people just don’t understand the connection between small problems and the big issues they can become. If you think crises, by their very nature, just arrive at your doorstep without warning, you’re not going to be looking out for any clues. The second part of the problem is lack of time. This is especially true in highpaced, hazardous work, but the pace of work across all fields has sped up. People have so much information coming at them that it’s hard to know which weak signals to pay attention…

You believe that it is more important than ever to understand how people resolve ethical dilemmas. Why now? It’s not because people are more unethical than they were, say 50 years ago; unethical behaviour has always been an issue. But the extent to which societies and people have become interconnected means that the consequences of peoples’ actions are more significant than ever. Modern organizations represent the interests of millions of people and have stakeholders across continents, so the ripple effect of one individual’s behaviour can be far-reaching. That’s why unethical behaviour demands attention from both researchers and the general public, in terms of understanding, a) why it happens, and b) how we can counteract it. Current theories in ethical decision making are heavily influenced by Lawrence Kohlberg’s model of moral…

AT ITS ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN JULY, the Academy of Management presented Rotman Chair in Management Anita Mc-Gahan with its Distinguished Educator Award for her career achievements inside and outside of the classroom. “Prof. McGahan’s contributions to management education have been numerous — not just in her classroom teaching, but in her development of teaching materials, her mentorship of young teachers and doctoral students and her advocacy for management education reform,” said Prof. Albert Cannella Jr. of Arizona State University, who chaired the Academy’s Career Achievement Awards Committee. “Watching her teach is an inspiring, if somewhat humbling, experience. What makes her so distinctive is not just her energy and enthusiasm in the classroom but how she couples an ability to demand quality in classroom discussion while maintaining kindness in her handling…

THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPETITIVENESS, INDIA — the Indian partner of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School — and the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management have joined hands to establish the Prosperity Institute of India. The Institute, which will be operated by the Institute for Competitiveness, will be based in Gurgaon, India, with the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) being a partner in all activities carried out. The Institute has been set up with the objective of enhancing the prosperity and creativity of Asia by sharing knowledge on the 3Ts: Technology, Tolerance and Talent. Developed by the Martin Prosperity Institute, the 3Ts are a useful analytical tool for understanding regional economic prosperity and growth by improving the traditional model emphasizing on companies, jobs or…

You have compared today’s organizations to ‘complex adaptive systems’. Please explain. A complex adaptive system contrasts with a mechanical system. With a mechanical system, cause and effect are clear and linear: if you push on a certain lever, a particular part of the system will be affected in a predictable way. In contrast, complex adaptive systems have multiple interrelating parts with complex relationships, so that if you push on a lever over here, what happens ‘over there’ is not predictable and is likely to be non-linear; it could even lead to an extreme reaction. This makes these systems sound a bit chaotic, but they are also dynamic and adaptable. Much like the systems found in nature, they self-regulate — they change in response to both internal and external triggers. Examples…

Let’s start at the beginning: How do you define a ‘high-potential employee’? A good rule of thumb is that ‘HiPos’ represent the top three-to-five per cent of your organization’s workforce on two key dimensions: performance and living the company’s values. These individuals consistently and significantly outperform their peers in a variety of settings and circumstances, and at the same time, they ‘live’ the culture. The HiPo title doesn’t automatically come with a big promotion; it’s a label that is earned over time. Companies hire people that exhibit a ‘fit’ with their values; but as people move up the hierarchy and into the high-potential cadre, it’s no longer enough to fit with the values: you have to begin to role model the values, and eventually, to actually teach them. You have…

• If the flexibility stigma for men stems from gender-non-conforming behaviour, the flexibility stigma for women stems from gender-conforming behaviour. When women request family leave or workplace flexibility, they are doing what women are expected to do: limit their work obligations in favour of family commitments. • In one study of highly qualified professional women, once women went part time, their status fell sharply, as did the quality of their work assignments. • Bias against mothers is of a different order of magnitude than the glass-ceiling bias against women in general. One study found that mothers were 79 per cent less likely to be hired, 100 per cent less likely to be promoted, offered an average of $11,000 less in salary, and held to higher performance and punctuality standards than…

WHAT IS THE SUM OF 5 PLUS 5? WHAT TWO NUMBERS ADD UP TO 10? The first question has only one right answer, while the second has an infinite number of solutions, including negative numbers and fractions. These two problems, which rely on simple addition, differ only in the way they are framed. In fact, all questions are the frame into which the answers fall. And as you can see, by changing the frame, you dramatically change the range of possible solutions. Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than…

In addition to being Canada’s CFO of the year, you have been named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women three years running, as well as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking by American Banker. What does power mean to you, and how do you go about using it? It’s tough for me to embrace the notion of power. I prefer to think about the importance of influence, and what that means in terms of having a positive impact and making my organization stronger. I also think about what I can do outside of the bank, and how I can use my influence to help organizations in the not-for-profit sector — and there are some that are very close to my heart. I also believe influence is about…

Q&A You believe the key difference between successful executives and those who are less successful is the way they deal with periods of confusion and uncertainty. Please explain. Some people are under the impression that highly-successful leaders enjoy a smooth path, but that is not the case. Every executive — no matter how successful — goes through difficult periods: they experience adversity, failure and disappointments. The trick is not to avoid those things completely, it’s to learn how to deal with them. And the best way to deal with them is not to pretend that you have all the answers. You have to be able to step back on a regular basis and ask questions — the right questions — and reflect in order to get yourself back on track.…

HOW ORGANIZATIONS CAN BENEFIT FROM FLEXTIME Why is it so important for today’s leaders to embrace the concept of flextime? The passing of a demographic milestone in the U.S. – women comprising fully half of the workforce – has renewed calls for updating the structure of work to meet the needs of the 21st century family. The availability of flexible work schedules, or flextime, is one tool that is critical to addressing the challenges families confront. In fact, it has been the most widely adopted work-family practice among medium and large private-sector employers. Can you describe some of the key benefits of flextime? Broadly defined, flextime is the ability to schedule flexible starting and quitting times, and research shows that this has positive effects on employees: it is associated with…

POWER AND CHOICE: THEIR DYNAMIC INTERPLAY POWER AND CHOICE represent two important forces that govern many aspects of human behaviour. Possessing power — one’s relative control over others or valued resources in social relations — has been shown to affect our decision making, ability to take action, focus on personal goals, and resistance to persuasion and conformity. Similarly, having choice — the ability to select a preferred course of action — also fundamentally affects our psychology, from increasing positive affect and satisfaction to improving task persistence and cognitive performance. Until recently, power and choice occupied separate islands within the literature. Power has largely been conceptualized as an interpersonal construct involving relative dependence on and influence over other individuals. In contrast, choice has typically been conceptualized as an intrapersonal construct whereby…

THINK ABOUT THE FIRST TIME you picked up an iPod, iPhone or iPad and experienced the touchscreen as an extension of your fingertips. Reflect back on the first time you played the Nintendo Wii, drove a Toyota Prius, used Purell hand sanitizer, discovered the trendy design of Method soap, visited Starbucks, or saw Cirque du Soleil. The list of the usual suspects of breakthroughs could go on and on. Though these things are all quite different from one another, they tend to produce similar feelings of positive surprise—with a hint of delight, wonder, and intrigue—when we first encounter them. My first personal experience with what I felt was a real breakthrough came when I was seven years old and I poured a packet of Pop Rocks into my mouth. I’ll…

THE ROTMAN SCHOOL recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the China Banking Association (CBA) to provide risk management programs to the Association’s 152 banks and financial services companies. The CBA is overseen by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and is responsible for training and development of all Chinese banks, including the Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of Communications — often referred to as ‘the Big Five’. David Mulroney, Canada’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, led the Canadian delegation at the signing ceremony in July. He was accompanied by Rotman Vice Dean Jim Fisher, Prof. Wendy Dobson, co-director of the Rotman Institute for International Business, and representatives from a number of Canadian banks and…

Gillian Almy (MBA ‘12) Brand Management Associate, Nike Lives and works in: Portland, Oregon BEST THING ABOUT MY JOB: Working for a company that is obsessed with defining ‘what’s next’ and finding ways to inspire and empower people through sport. There is never a boring day. MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Building and communicating a clear point of view that cuts through the noise and connects meaningfully to consumers in ways that are globally scalable and locally relevant. MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS FOR MY JOB: User understanding, storytelling, strategy, user experience design, and strong communication and collaboration skills. PROUDEST MOMENT: Landing my dream job. THE WORD THAT BEST DESCRIBES ME: Resilient. I ENCOURAGE ‘NICE WORK’ IN MY ORGANIZATION BY: Having a positive, can-do attitude. HOW I RELAX: There’s nothing better than being surrounded…