A Recipe for Authentic Leadership to Boost Innovation
by Guillaume Alvarez

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

The new CEO of a global consulting firm wanted to connect with his people, share his vision and communicate a desired culture. With the best of intentions, he sent out a monthly newsletter. After a while, he discovered 90 percent of people never opened it. In the age of information, words, which leaders so often rely upon to lead, lack impact. Large organizations are struggling to grow, racing to disrupt before being disrupted and eagerly seeking new ideas, yet, they are often rudderless when it comes to communicating direction and empowering people. This is lending to the erosion of trust — exactly what’s needed to encourage the risk-taking required for innovation. LACK OF LOYALTY A […]

Transformation from the top? How about engagement on the ground?
by Henry Mintzberg

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

The company has a new chief, with 100 days to show the stock market some quick wins. Not the usual wins: transformation is the game. Hurry up and reinvent the whole company. But where to begin? That’s easy: at the “top”. Where else when there’s such pressure. Besides, any chief who has been to a business school or reads the business press knows that it’s all about leadership: the boss who does the thinking that drives everyone else. Louis XIV said “L’état, c’est moi!” Today’s corporate CEO says “The enterprise, that’s me!” John Kotter has written the widespread word on transformation, at the Harvard Business School, where so many of the cases are about the chief.  Here is […]

“The pleasure of the Company”
Charles Handy interviewed by Peter Day

Posted on jasLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Charles Handy made his name as the champion of what he calls the modern “portfolio career”: no more jobs for life. He started his working life as a business person: an oil company executive. In the 1960s he began the second stage of his portfolio career, helping to set up the London Business School. His third big job has been as an author of books about business, management and life in general. Combining striking metaphor and profound common sense, they include The Empty Raincoat, The Gods of Management, The Age of Unreason and The Second Curve. In this podcast Charles Handy reviews his own portfolio, regrets the replacement of the company by the corporation, and […]

Include Me Out
by Joseph Pistrui

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

In the 1930s, a group of Hollywood executives tried to entice Samuel Goldwyn to join them in a project. Upon reflection, Goldwyn declined, saying, “Include me out.” Today, too many people are saying the same thing when it comes to solving the world’s problems. While some level of progress around the world is undeniable, the challenges facing the world today are unparalleled. If you can, set aside momentarily the flagrant terrorism and threats of war. Focus for a second on the daily upheaval that is only sure to grow as today’s workplace (built on a 19th century manufacturing model) is supplanted by a workplace built on 21st century digital platforms, more automated and robotic than […]

“It’s a dog’s life and other problems”
Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg interviewed by Peter Day

Posted on jasLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg is an expert on innovation and a critic of how many companies try to do it the wrong way; he is co-author of the book Innovation as Usual: How to Help Your People to Bring Great Ideas to Life. Originally from Denmark, he now lives in New York where he is working on a new project trying to improve the way that the world goes about tackling its problems. Thomas W-W talks about his ideas to Peter Day, and explains what he learnt about business problem-solving from a shelter for abandoned dogs in Los Angeles.

GPDF17 GROWTH AND INCLUSIVE PROSPERITY
by Mark Beliczky

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

While the world has experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth for the past fifty years (positive annual GDP growth in 54 of 55 years since 1961), the global economic growth rate in terms of GDP and measured in decades is 31% lower today than it was in the 60’s. Also, it is important to note that the world GDP per capita has also declined 37% since the highs of 1960s. The challenge for business leaders in today’s slower/slowing growth period is to find ways to reverse the trend and to shift and propel their organization into growth mode. The growth engine can be stimulated and energized, not with real capital, but with a greater […]

Combating Transhumanism
by Sarah Spiekermann

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Inclusive prosperity builds on a positive and benevolent idea of man. But do we really uphold such a good-natured way of thinking about mankind if transhumanism paves its way into the elites? In June the Swiss Daily “Neue Züricher Zeitung” (NZZ) published the Anti-Transhumanist Manifesto that I completed together with a number of colleagues holding professorships in such diverse academic disciplines as psychology, business informatics, philosophy, architecture and theology. My stance has been supported from around the world for bringing the topic to the fore: that a select group of positivistic scientists are promoting an idea of man that is not only false, but also incredibly dangerous in times of accelerating technological advance.   What […]