Leadership

Five conversations — often avoided — are essential to the success of any high stakes project.

Numerous studies confirm that few people can make it through a typical day without lying. So it should not be surprising that falsehoods and deception are widespread in business negotiations as well. The unspoken, and perhaps unconscious, thought is that if everyone lies, why is it so bad? The author examines legal and ethical views of lying, noting that while courts often hold parties to the truth of their representations, negotiators have many ways to mislead the opposing side. For example, negotiating tactics such as nondisclosure and evasion are rarely considered illegal. Indeed, it is often possible to avoid liability by using misleading behaviors that make no representations but which seem to. In light of the moral and legal ambiguity of lying, the author offers suggestions for how to detect lies and how to protect oneself against bargaining deception including: establishing negotiating ground rules before the discussions begin, asking the same question in different ways, asking questions to which you already know the answer, including written claims in the final agreement, using contingent agreements or using an escrow agent or a performance bond.

Business schools and others interested in management education and development have vigorously debated how best to teach strategy to future leaders. Some experts have questioned whether the topic should be taught at all -- or at least whether it should be taught to managers. Often missing from the debate, however, has been any in-depth discussion of how individuals learn to think strategically in the first place. What specific experiences are important and how do they contribute? Moreover, what are the different ways in which people absorb those experiences to develop the ability to think strategically? To answer these and other questions, the author conducted a study that identified executives who were considered the top strategic thinkers in their industry. The study then investigated the totality of experiences (educational, job related or other) that contributed to the high ability of those individuals. In addition, the research investigated the different ways in which the executives acquired their expertise in strategic thinking -- a process that typically took more than a decade The data showed that strategic thinking arises from 10 specific types of experiences -- for instance, spearheading a major growth initiative or dealing with a threat to organizational survival. Moreover, executives appear to gain their expertise in strategic thinking through one of three developmental patterns. These findings help demystify the process by which strategic thinking is learned, offering important implications for management development and the practice of strategy.

Societal consequences give power to formal sanctions.

It can be good or bad, depending upon what kind it is and in what cultural context it occurs.

Organizations often try to include as many people as possible in the decision-making process, but sometimes it's just not possible to involve anyone beyond a small group. The need for confidentiality and speed are constraints, as is the sheer difficulty of polling an entire organization of thousands of employees regarding decisions that will affect the entire company. Managers or executives must sometimes "download" a decision to their people after the fact -- and this is where many a decision crashes on rocky shoals. Mergers fail as key employees leave and others resist change; union contracts are rejected after months of negotiation; and changes in employee benefits meet with strident protest. What's behind these failures, and what can be done to avert them? The authors lay out reasons for ineffective downloading: a disconnect between the two sides as the negotiating party fails to see the negatives of a decision; a failure to clarify responsibilities that result in rumor and word of mouth being the primary channels of communication; a desire to inform people quickly -- which often means superficially; and a paternalistic desire to protect members of an organization when people would prefer just to hear the truth. Against this record of mistakes and misguided notions, the authors set their four-stage process for a robust decision downloading. Their process is informed by survey research of several hundred employees in a variety of organizations, as well as interviews with dozens of executives.

Since the 1980s, the percentage of obese Americans has risen from one-sixth of the population to nearly one-third -- and the problem is particularly acute among children and adolescents, where the obesity rate has tripled in 30 years. While this problem is certainly, in the first instance, one of personal responsibility and self-control, business leaders should be concerned, too -- for at least four reasons. The first reason is simple self-preservation: Food and beverage companies could find themselves in the trial lawyers' crosshairs. The second reason is closely related to the first: The food and beverage industry is the target of the public's increasing ire over portion sizes and unhealthy ingredients. Third, companies will not be able to function efficiently if a significant proportion of their current and future employees suffer from obesity. And finally, opportunity knocks: Companies have the chance to develop new products and create a positive brand image that will fatten the corporate bottom line while simultaneously helping obese Americans shed dangerous pounds. The authors explain how several companies are actively pursuing several strategies to help solve America's other "energy crisis" -- too much consumption and too little movement.

Meetings are a central fact of organizational life. As a vehicle for communication, they can be extremely valuable mechanisms for disseminating vision, crafting strategic plans, and developing responses to challenges and opportunities. They can also be helpful for gathering ideas, brainstorming, and generating higher levels of employee involvement. But too many meetings are seen as a waste of time -- as a source of frustration rather than enlightenment. The authors explore some basic questions: How much time do people really spend in meetings? Are employees burning out from meeting overload? To what extent do people consider their time in meetings unproductive? And how can companies use meeting time better? To answer these questions, they look at a variety of sources: research and application literature; their own experiences working with clients; and data from two multinational studies of employees (including one that provided the basis of an article titled "'Not Another Meeting!' Are Meeting Time Demands Related to Employee Well-Being?" Journal of Applied Psychology 91, no. 1 (2006): 86-96, by Rogelberg, Leach, Warr and Burnfield). Based on these inquiries, they offer insights into the world of meetings and how organizations can use them more effectively.

Most large-scale change efforts fail to meet their expectations. A major problem is that even the most advanced change models will stumble when they face organizational designs and management practices that are inherently anti-change. The truth is that the effectiveness of change efforts is largely determined by organizational design, or how a company's structure, processes, reward systems and other features are orchestrated over time to support one another as well as the company's strategic intent, identity and capabilities. In a world that is perpetually changing, an organization's design must support the idea that the implementation and reimplementation of a strategy is a continuous process. However, a number of traditional organizational design features tend to discourage -- and not encourage -- change. Thus, to transform themselves into organizations that are "built to change," companies need to rethink a number of these basic design assumptions with respect to managing talent (forget about job descriptions and redefine the relationship between company and worker), reward systems (implement a "person-based" pay system), structure (redesign the organization to maximize its "surface area"), information and decision processes (scrap the annual-budget process and move decision making closer to the front lines), and leaders (replace hierarchical command-and-control with shared leadership).

Multicultural experience tends to facilitate creative thinking and problem solving.