Innehållsförteckning för Fall 2019 från Rotman Management

THE WINNERS IN BUSINESS have shifted markedly in the last decade. When the 2010s began, the world’s ten most valuable public companies by market capitalization were based in five countries, only two of them were in the tech sector, and none was worth more than US$ 400 billion. Today, all of the top ten are in the U.S. and China, the majority are tech companies, and some — at least temporarily — have surpassed US$ 1 trillion in value. Given the relentlessness of change on multiple dimensions, the keys to success are likely to be just as different over the next ten years. What will it take to win in the next decade? The Boston Consulting Group recently released a series called “Winning the 20s”, in which we present five…

Google co-founder Larry Page has described Alphabet as “a collection of companies.” What does that entail at the moment? Our current holdings vary from things that are very much in a state of early development — mostly inside our R&D facility, Google X — and companies that are further along, like Waymo (our self-driving technology development company) and Verily (which focuses on healthcare and disease prevention research). Both of these are beginning to deliver products to market and moving from the initial research prototype phase into the product phase. We were motivated to do the restructuring in 2015 because we felt that one of the key challenges successful companies face, as they go into their second and third decade, is to diversify the suite of products they offer. The mainline…

ALISON BEARD: Why do you think it has been such a hurdle to get young girls and women pursuing careers in Computer Science? RESHMA SAUJANI: There have always been women in technology and computing, but things started to change in the 1980s. At the time, if you walked into any computer science classroom it would have been 40 per cent girls and 60 per cent boys — very close to parity. But then those numbers started trickling to where we are now, which is less than 20 per cent — and I believe it’s because of our culture. In the 1980s we saw the birth of the ‘brogrammer’ in films like Weird Science and Revenge of the Nerds. And when you asked girls, ‘What does a computer scientist look like?’,…

BY ALL MEASURES, the home is the future of healthcare. Not only will more people receive care in their homes, but many medical procedures that have historically been carried out in institutional settings will be administered in patients’ living rooms. This shift is being accelerated by improvements to automation and artificial intelligence (AI) such as chatbots, enabling the notion of ‘care anywhere’ in Canada and across the globe. The growing appetite for home care is a response to three main drivers: increasing access problems (wait times), growing patient and family expectations (choice, convenience, quality) and society’s inability (or unwillingness) to continue to pay for the costs of delivering healthcare in formal institutions, which are being outstripped by demand. As of 2016, nearly 730,000 Ontarians were receiving home care services, 63…

You have said that networks matter to outcomes that are important for both individuals and organizations. How so? The easiest way to think about it is that nobody can do it alone. We are no longer able to perform our complicated, interdependent jobs by ourselves. It’s not like being a cobbler in the olden days, with a workshop where make shoes alone. Today, there are only small pockets in organizations where people can work in isolation. For the most part, we need others for knowledge, resources, and access to opportunities. Internal and external networks are critical for carrying out any kind of job today. The whole point of having organizations in the first place is to have people with different competencies and expertise come together to pursue something collectively important…

You believe we are in the midst of an “extraordinary transition” that will culminate in a social and economic revolution. Please describe it. There are some enormously important trends happening in the world right now, but the ones I focus on in my work are the impact of technology and social and demographic trends. Take, for example, the evolution of the family unit, where the changing roles of men and women are rewriting some of the fundamental rules of how we live our lives and, indeed, how we work. What is a ‘multi-staged life’—and what will it mean to make the most of one? One of the old rules of the game was the idea of a three-stage life, which involved full-time education, full-time work and then full-time retirement. But…

In 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy after it was revealed that it had concealed large debts, giving investors a false image of the company. How did Enron’s collapse provide the impetus for scrutinizing the conduct of boards and corporate governance in general? When the Enron fiasco happened, people really started asking, ‘Where was the board? How did it allow this to happen?’ People were really surprised that the board did not notice problems, and I think that prompted those interested in the collapse to examine what was going on at the board level in general. Some people who analyzed the conduct of the Enron board concluded that it was complacent, and that it did not bother to question much of what was going on. There was talk about ‘groupthink’ —…

As part of its largest global study ever, Gallup recently discovered that people the world over want one thing in life more than anything else. What is it? This was one of our most surprising findings ever: What everyone wants more than anything is a good job, which Gallup defines as 30+ hours per week for a paycheque from an organization. It’s even better to have a great job, which means two things: A job where they get a chance to really connect with a higher purpose and where they get to use their strengths on a regular basis. I think the reason people want this so much right now is that there is so much overlap between work and our personal life today. Work regularly spills over into the…

THREE TECH GIANTS — Google, Apple and Facebook — are headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, an hour or two south of San Francisco. The area is deep suburbia, and as such, isn’t attractive to younger people with highly prized technical skills. As a result, many programmers live in San Francisco or Oakland and make a daily trek along Highways 101 or 280. Given that technology workers were already putting in long hours, it didn’t take long for their employers to step up and make this commuting time productive: They established their own private bus system, with comfortable seats, Wi-Fi and access to drinks. And in the process, those buses became a symbol. In 2014, buses carrying tech workers were blocked by angry locals. Protesters in Oakland threw rocks…

UNDERLYING THE PRACTICE and study of management is the belief that it is a science and that business decisions must be driven by rigorous analysis of data. The explosion of big data has only reinforced this idea. In a recent EY survey, 81 per cent of executives said they believed that “data should be at the heart of all decision-making,” leading EY to proclaim that “big data can eliminate reliance on ‘gut feel’ decision-making.” Many managers find this notion appealing. But is it true that management is a science? And is it right to equate intellectual rigour with data analysis? If the answers to those questions are no and no — as we suggest in the following pages — then how should managers arrive at their decisions? In this article…

NOT THAT LONG AGO, traders used Reuters or Dow Jones Telerate to gather information and then grabbed paper, a pencil and a calculator to run analytics and make their decisions. A then-little-known financier named Michael Bloomberg observed this activity daily and noticed multiple frustrations on the part of traders. Before long, he concluded that the providers of financial information also needed to offer easy-to-digest analytics to help users make sense of all the data. This simple insight would spawn a world-renowned business. Today, Bloomberg has 19,000 employees in 176 locations worldwide. The origins of Bloomberg and other corporate success stories highlight a critical managerial lesson: In many cases, searching for customer insights in order to use them to develop unique and winning products and services is not a data-crunching game.…

WHEN DO CONSUMERS DECIDE TO BUY SOMETHING? Why and how do they shop in the first place? Over the past 20 years, a number of macro shifts have disrupted the retailing industry and changed the way that companies need to think about shoppers. These changes have drastically altered shopping patterns and buying decisions — presenting new opportunities and challenges for marketers to persuade consumers to spend money and encourage repeat purchases. In particular, four categories of emergent change have impacted the shopping landscape: Knowledge changes. Consumers are more knowledgeable about offerings in the marketplace today, and have convenient and uninterrupted access to a diverse range of information sources about brands and products. This gives them the ability to make more informed decisions. In many cases, consumers may be more well-informed…

THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH and practice have led me to a conclusion that sums up my approach to organizational problem solving: The questions people ask about situations they want to change reveal a lot about what they are thinking and feeling. This insight about the relationship between what people ask and how they frame a situation has not only informed my approach to working with leaders, it has inspired me to develop a framework for recognizing and avoiding ‘thinking traps’. In the last several years, I have been collecting the questions leaders ask about situations that have them ‘stuck’. In some cases they are experiencing a persistent and intractable problem; in others they are facing a daunting opportunity and don’t know where to begin. I have found that in most…

You are known as a champion of workplace inclusivity. For anyone who still needs to be convinced, why is it so important? This is something I’ve always been passionate about, even before it was part of my job description. There are two things in particular that really resonate with me and that I believe will resonate with others. The first is the concept of ‘brain space’. If you think of our brains as computers, we all have 100 per cent capacity to work with. About 20 per cent of our brain power goes into basic, automatic functions like eating, sleeping, and physical coordination, which leaves 80 per cent for everything else. Imagine taking about 50 per cent of that away with endless self-questioning about things like, ‘Can I be myself…

You have said that for leaders, having a great plan in place is no longer the route to success. What is the better approach? The problem with plans in today’s world is that, by the time you’ve figured out how to put them into action, the world has already moved on — and you’re addressing the recent past rather than the future. A better approach is to share as much real-time information about the world as possible by building what we call ‘intelligence systems’ throughout your organization, so that people are aware of what is going on around them, know what other teams are up to, and can chart the best course to success. In addition to building intelligence systems, leaders must be really, really clear about what the team…

According to the SAP Digital Transformation Executive Study, 80 per cent of companies that have embraced digital transformation have experienced increased profitability. So why have only 21 per cent of companies completed their digital transformation? Shawn Mandel: I don’t know if ‘completed’ is the right word, because you’re never really done on this journey. There are significant milestones along the way, but in a large enterprise, this is a very complex task: You’re trying to deliver excellent outcomes to your customers while, at the same time, growing and building your digital capabilities, evolving with the technology and shifting your processes and your culture. It is extremely challenging to orchestrate all of that at once. Andrew Kumar: The lens we use is that it’s not about hitting a grand-slam; we feel…

You have said that “success is no longer the purview of the Harvard MBA graduate.” Who is it the purview of? At one time, leadership always had to be earned, but in my personal experience, I’ve discovered that it can also be taken. You don’t have to have a degree, a fancy title or tons of money to be a leader — you can just act. Technology has been a big factor in this. Many young leaders are emerging because of the ability to take their iPhone, shoot stories, and launch movements online. You don’t need permission to lead anymore. For my co-author Ashleigh Hansberger and I, the thesis behind our book [Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous and Different] is that in order to achieve…

In your research on the path to prosperity, you and your colleagues found that most innovations target the ‘consumption economy’, ignoring the significant opportunities that exist in the ‘non-consumption economy’. Please explain. The consumption economy is made up of customers who have the income, time and expertise to purchase and use existing products or services in a market. Most businesses, therefore, invest in innovations that target these consumers. As a result, the market for these consumers is already mostly defined. When you already know who your customers are, it’s relatively easy to see potential for growth. Non-consumers, as their name implies, consist of individuals who, for some reason, are not able to purchase and use a product or service, and who may not even be able to tell you exactly…

OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, I’ve transitioned from research professor to research professor and founder and CEO. The first hard and humbling lesson? Regardless of the complexity of the concepts, studying leadership is way easier than leading. When I think about my personal experiences with leading over the past few years, the only endeavours that have required the same level of self-awareness and equally high-level ‘comms plans’ are being married for 24 years and parenting. And that’s saying something. I completely underestimated the pull on my emotional bandwidth, the sheer determination it takes to stay calm under pressure, and the weight of continuous problem solving and decision making. Oh, yeah — and the sleepless nights. My quasi-selfish goal in writing my most recent book — Dare to Lead — is…

IT IS WELL DOCUMENTED that in this age of widespread disruption, companies must innovate continuously, creating new markets, experiences, products, services, content or processes. So, what can leaders do to encourage innovation? It’s about more than recruiting the brightest minds. While having the best talent is clearly an asset, people need the right culture in order to flourish. We have found that a culture of equality — the same kind of workplace environment that helps everyone advance to higher positions — is a powerful multiplier of innovation and growth. This means that building a culture of equality is not just an ethical imperative, it is also a business priority. Put simply, if organizations want to thrive, they have to ‘get to equal’. The power of a workplace culture of equality…

IF IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET, it is only a matter of time before your organization has a ‘cyber incident’. In 2019, when replaced if as the guiding principle. The FBI estimates that a cyber incident will occur every 14 seconds this year, so as you read this, it’s likely that nearly 100 incidents will take place, ranging from minor, accidental disclosures of sensitive information to a major theft of data and other valuable assets by criminals, state-sponsored actors, or terrorists. What makes the effects of cyber incidents so insidious are their velocity and visibility. Cyber crises unfold in a matter of minutes — hours at best, and they evolve not only at lightning speed, but in the public eye. The consequences usually span the breadth and width of the organization…

MY CAREER AT FACEBOOK started in 2006 as its first intern. Three years later, I became a rookie manager at the age of 25. Today, I manage an organization of hundreds of people. This journey has brought countless new challenges, mistakes and lessons. One of my key areas of growth as a manager has been strategy. As I progressed in my career, I knew that there was an expectation that the work I did would become increasingly ‘strategic’. But what did that really mean? This is what I used to think it meant: • Setting metric goals.• Thinking outside the box to come up with new ideas.• Working harder and motivating others to work harder.• Writing long documents.• Creating frameworks.• Drawing graphs on a whiteboard. I tried to do as…

On a daily basis, we are confronted with opportunities for both ethical and unethical behaviour. What leads people to choose one over the other? The major model of human decision-making that has driven the social sciences is ‘utility maximization’, a.k.a: value maximization. Everything we do in life involves an attempt to maximize value, whatever value means for us in that particular moment. My co-authors Jackson Lu (MIT Sloan) and Adam Galinsky (Columbia) and I have argued that whenever you face a conflict between an ethical action and an unethical one, you do an intuitive ‘cost benefit analysis’. Your brain tries to figure out, ‘What will the outcome be if I cheat in this situation? And what will it be if I don’t cheat?’ When you’re in a situation where cheating…

You worked as a leader on the front lines in healthcare for more than 20 years. In your view, what is the industry’s greatest challenge? One of the greatest healthcare challenges is leading transformation within a culture that has been pretty static for the last 20 years, and within an operational conundrum that doesn’t have a lot of slack to innovate or learn how to do things differently. Both culturally and operationally, there are barriers to positive change. Canada currently ranks 9TH out of 34 OECD countries in terms of ‘healthcare outcomes’, and 10TH in terms of ‘access’. Is our system still world-class? It is not, and I believe these rankings are a call to action. One of the key issues is our wait times. There are major variations in…

HARD-CHARGING LEADERS often boast that at their companies, ‘We hold people accountable’. Success, they argue, comes from this culture of accountability. This phrase is surely one of the most overused — and frankly, insulting — additions to the business jargon in recent years. The implication that employees won’t do their jobs properly unless management checks their work for quality — and punishes them if they fail to deliver — demeans both workers’ professionalism and integrity. In addition, the negativity baked into this paradigm is astonishing: No one talks about holding people accountable when they believe they do their jobs well. Obviously, employees at all levels — supervisors, managers and executives included — need to perform well for a company to thrive. But the best leaders don’t focus solely on the…

Great leadership is surprisingly rare. Why is that? While there are plenty of well-intentioned individuals in leadership roles, they face a few key challenges. The first is time pressure. Research shows that when we’re under time pressure, we become anxious and stressed, and our empathy dampens. When leaders get stressed out they can become incredibly self-focused and lose sight of how their behaviour is impacting the people around them. The second challenge involves the impact of power. We’ve all heard the expression that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’, and based on the evidence, it’s clear that power does impact how we behave. Leaders often have one rule for themselves and another rule for other people; when someone else does something questionable, they see it as unethical and inappropriate; yet when they…