Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2015 i Rotman Management

A thriving workforce is one in which employees and their leaders are not just satisfied and productive: they are engaged in creating the future — both the organization’s and their own. This special digital compilation issue from Rotman Management gives you timeless ideas from our archives that will enable you, your employees, and your organization to thrive. DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY TODAY FOR ONLY $18.95! rotman.utoronto.ca/thrive OR READ IT ON THESE DIGITAL NEWSSTANDS Zinio | Magzter | Pocket Mags | iTunes 1st Special DIGITAL Compilation Inside this special themed compilation you’ll find: 68 pages of ideas and advice to help you – and the people who report to you – flourish at work 12 of the most-read & discussed articles from Rotman Management magazine’s archives on thriving Tips from experts like…

WHEN ASKED TO DESCRIBE what they do in generic terms, many executives or entrepreneurs will likely say that they ‘solve problems’. Problem solving is what brings ‘busyness’ to business. However, this phrase misleads the mind, because business problems are not the clean, tidy, well-defined puzzles students everywhere grow up with on exams and problem sets. Problems like: • Economists calculating the profit-maximizing price and quantity conditional on market conditions; • An engineer calculating the transient response of an electrical circuit to a sudden surge in input current; or • A company’s operations managers identifying optimal delivery routes. Though they look quite different, these problems have some common characteristics. • THEY ARE WELL DEFINED. You know the starting point and you have a conception of what the solution might look like.…

Renowned Psychology and Management Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term ‘flow’ to describe the overwhelming pleasure that people experience when they fully immerse themselves in a task they enjoy. Though it is frequently applied to people engaged in creative or sporting pursuits, many people, regardless of their occupation, describe peak moments when their work just seems to flow effortlessly — when their actions and consciousness are perfectly aligned. The benefits of flow are immediate and clear. At the individual level, they include better performance, increased motivation and a positive spirit. At the corporate level, this positive attitude and maximum commitment translate into a collective willingness to work together for organizational success. Flow starts with individuals empowered to boost their own effectiveness and with managers offering helpful suggestions and constructive criticism.…

ANYONE WHO HAS READ A NEWSPAPER lately knows that businesses are globalizing at a remarkable rate. The number of multinational companies jumped from a mere 3,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 — worth a collective $57 trillion — by 2012. This figure will increase further, as 75 per cent of corporations have indicated an intention to compete in foreign markets, according to a recent poll of senior executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit. This represents a complex transformation, since the process and pace of globalization can differ dramatically across sectors, between companies in the same industry, and even within different divisions of the same company. For example, at Owens Corning, the two major business units fit completely different profiles: the building materials division is U.S.-based, while the composites business…

WHILE MANY HAVE TRIED TO ‘THINK DIFFERENT’, the grammaticallyquestionable command put forth in Apple’s tagline is far easier said than done. We often only get to new ways of thinking after we have tried and repeatedly failed to solve a problem through familiar means. But increasingly, the intrepid thinkers among us recognize the need to explore alternative pathways to creative solutions. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to have a breakthrough that has influenced my thinking in countless ways. At the time, I was working as an innovation coach to senior leaders at Toyota. Normally, I have more ideas than I know what to do with; but on one particularly difficult project, I ran out of them. I had been hired to help Toyota develop new strategies for its…

AS OF THIS WRITING, 60 PER CENT OF U.S. college students and 40 per cent of MBA students are women. Those are high percentages, and we expect them to hold — if not rise. Based on several data trends and the continued crumbling of barriers, we estimate that by 2040 — a quarter century from now, when today’s college and business school graduates will be taking the CEO reins — women will represent some 30 per cent of the incoming class of the top 2,500 global CEOs. And that proportion will only increase over time. To punctuate the rise of female leaders and to help personify the challenges CEOs will encounter by the middle of this century, we have envisioned a prototypical chief executive of 2040, and in this article…

You believe today’s reality requires new ways of working and a different type of intelligence. Please explain. I think we can all feel the work environment changing. Instead of going to a workplace every day, we’re operating in a ‘workscape’ characterized by vast amounts of information that we are constantly trying to process. Work cycles are spinning faster; we can work more and get more done, but at the same time, things change so quickly that many of us don’t face the same problem twice. Innovation cycles are spinning faster, too, which means obsolescence is increasing. The things we know to be true don’t stay true for very long. At the beginning of the Information Age, knowledge was the critical commodity, but that is changing. Today, being able to access…

You believe that every time we interact with someone at work, we make choices around ‘reciprocity’. Describe how ‘Givers’ and ‘Takers’ differ in their behaviour. Takers view interactions as a way of extracting value from other people and approach colleagues with a mindset of, ‘How can I get as much as possible from this exchange?’ At the other end of the spectrum, Givers come to an interaction trying to figure out, ‘What can I contribute here? How can I add value?’ That usually means looking for ways to be helpful, without any strings attached. It might involve sharing knowledge, providing mentoring, making introductions, or just showing up early or staying late to help someone out. You have found that there is a third type of ‘reciprocity style’: Matchers. Please describe…

How did you become curious enough about curiosity to write a book on the subject? It has always struck me that, while people can be loud or quiet, kind or cruel, one of the biggest differences is whether they’re curious or incurious. You can tell as soon as you start talking to someone: not only are curious people more interested in you, they are interested in whatever subject comes up. There’s a light behind the eyes of a curious person. I started to realize that many of the books and articles I was reading mentioned that businesses, regardless of industry, are seeking to hire curious people. It’s one of the top things leaders say they’re looking for: they want to hire people who are creative, who are good collaborators, and…

Many people feel that technology has negative effects on the way we think, but you believe it is actually changing our minds for the better. Please explain. I’ve been writing about this for 20 years now, and in the beginning, I was pretty skeptical. I thought the Internet was going to destroy society — that the average person was unqualified to be giving their opinion about everything and that it would just lead to a morass of stupidity. But every time I wrote a story about a new technology tool, I discovered that it was far more interesting and creative than I could have imagined. For example, when I first wrote about instant messaging (IM), my initial thought was, Isn’t this just a shorter, stupider version of email? But when…

May 7, 5:30-8:00pm, Toronto Rotman Financial Services Advisory Board Speaker Series Topic: Diversity in Financial Services Opening Remarks: Jaime Anderson, Deputy Chair, RBC Dominion Securities Moderator: Sarah Kaplan, Professor of Strategic Management, Rotman Panelists: Rod Bolger, SVP, Finance & Controller, RBC Financial Group Rosemary Li-Houpt, VP - Talent Acquisition, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Jennifer Reynolds, President and CEO, Women in Capital Markets Richard Nesbitt, Adjunct Professor of Finance, Rotman (former COO, CIBC) May 11, 5:30-6:30pm, Toronto Rotman Master of Finance Speaker Series Speaker: John Hull, Maple Financial Professor of Derivatives and Risk Management, Rotman Topic: Measuring Market Risk May 12, 4:00-6:00pm, Toronto Institute for International Business @ Rotman Speaker Series Speaker: William Kovacic, Professor, George Washington University Law School May 13, 5:00-6:00pm, Toronto Leadership Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman…

In our sensory-overloaded environment; focus is generally thought to be a good thing; but you believe it can also be dangerous. Please explain. The problem is, many of us are so focused that we miss out on critical information around us. The key is to remain focused most of the time, but occasionally pick your head up and look around. Many people who are now in leadership positions came up through more technical, narrow parts of their business, where focus was a good thing because they had a narrow task to complete. But once you become a leader, the ability to notice challenges, opportunities and threats in the environment becomes critical. Before making any important decision, you believe we need to ask ourselves a key question; what is it? It’s…

IN 2010, ACCORDING TO THE WORLD BANK, the United States government spent 12.7 per cent of its total budget on education. That amounts to more than $15,000 annually per student in the system — more than any other developed nation, as measured by the OECD. Yet, despite this massive investment, voices from across sectors have warned of a growing crisis in education. Bill Gates, for one, has declared American education to be downright obsolete. At a summit on high-school education, the founder of Microsoft said: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded — though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean that our schools — even when they’re working exactly as designed — cannot…

LAST YEAR’S UPROAR over Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s statement that women shouldn’t ask for raises, but instead, “trust in karma” for their rewards, has highlighted a tension that exists in corporate and investment communities: we believe that we operate in a meritocracy, but the evidence increasingly suggests that we do not. Instead, our systems for evaluating people and investments are skewed in unintended ways by biases that work against women and minorities. For example, female-led startups find it harder to obtain funding than those led by men; women are often not hired or promoted at the rate of men; and the 2009 passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in the U.S. is only necessary because — even in the 21st century — women are not paid equally for…

IT IS NO SECRET THAT BIG DATA offers enormous potential for value creation. Every C-suite on the planet understands the promise. Less understood — and much less put into practice — are the steps that companies must take in order to realize that potential. For all of the justifiable enthusiasm about Big Data, too many businesses risk leaving its vast potential on the table — or worse, ceding it to competitors. In our work with clients of The Boston Consulting Group, we have found that it is helpful to break Big Data down into three core components: data usage, the data engine, and the data ecosystem. In each of these areas, two key abilities are essential. In this article we will describe the resulting six capabilities, and how you can…

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION of genius? For most people, it’s someone with a towering IQ — say, 140 points or higher. I would argue that a genius is more than that, but also less. My working definition is, ‘any person who turns insight into innovation, and in the process, changes our view of the world’. In short, it’s someone who takes creativity to the point of originality. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said it best: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.” The rules set forth in this article aren’t new, but they can help you create something new. Michelangelo didn’t invent the hammer and chisel, but by using these tools he sculpted the Pietà. Just as you can’t shape a…

Your blog for Psychology Today is called Finding the Next Einstein. Describe your quest. I wanted to explore the idea that the quest for another Einstein — someone who would forever alter our society in the way that he did — is incredibly important, because of the potential implications. Through my blog, I connect the latest findings in the fields of Psychology and Education to what is going on in the world. I also advocate for gifted kids — especially financially-disadvantaged ones — who, to a large degree, are ignored in the American school system. I’m continually amazed at how the study of talent crosses so many boundaries. For example, my recent conversation with David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, highlights the amazing similarities between talent development in sports…

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you don’t need to be told that we are living in a digital era. And if the devices that occupy our waking hours are any indication, there is no going back. With few exceptions, when people talk about breakthroughs today, they’re referring to something that happens on a screen — whether it’s a website, an app or some other type of content-delivery system. The incredible flexibility of digital platforms has made them indispensable. Digital is ‘easy’ in the sense that it allows designers and developers to quickly prototype many options, test the results with real users, refine the best ones, and then rapidly launch them into the marketplace, where they can be copied and distributed at virtually no cost. Broadly speaking, this is…

My opening statement won’t surprise anyone: the unpredictable nature of the environment in which managers currently find themselves demands more agile thinking. A while back, a client of mine provided an apt metaphor to differentiate traditional, linear thinking from the agile approach that today’s environment demands: surfing vs. diving. The surf domain is a metaphor for surfing — the kind of thinking and learning that happens on the surface. ‘Surf learning’ is easy to understand, includes answers, is instrumental, transactional, and relatively safe. It enables us to make sense of things by transacting with information and events, creating a series of clear responses and actions. On the other hand, the deeper and more complex level of thinking and learning requires us to dive beneath the surface in order to make…

ON JANUARY 27, the Rotman School of Management, the University of Toronto, the city of Toronto, the province of Ontario, Canada — and the world — lost a truly great man in Joseph Louis Rotman. Joe left an indelible mark on many organizations besides our school, including the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, MaRS, the Canada Council for the Arts, Rise Asset Development, Grand Challenges Canada and the Ontario Brain Institute. Some of these he founded; others, he helped to utterly transform. All will miss terribly his ongoing sage influence. But Joe’s impact was also made in a different way — one that will live on as a gift that keeps on giving: he rewired brains, including mine. To quote the famous and grammatically unsound Apple ad copy, I ‘think…

GENERAL MILLS IS NOT JUST A LARGE NORTH AMERICAN food corporation with more than 41,000 employees, $17 billion in net sales and over 100 brands under its umbrella. It is also a pioneer in executive education and leadership training, thanks in part to its 2006 adoption of a ground-breaking program aimed at cultivating ‘mindfulness’ — a state of heightened awareness and attention — in its workforce. After participating in the company’s mindfulness training programs, employees testify to enhanced listening capacity, clearer decision making and higher productivity. Other leading companies have since launched similar programs, including Google, Procter & Gamble, Apple, Yahoo! and Unilever. Meanwhile, the latest research in the fields of Psychology, Neuroscience and Management has begun to lend scientific credence to the notion of mindfulness, which until recently was…

FEW PEOPLE WOULD DISAGREE THAT TESLA, the brainchild of Elon Musk, has shaken up the automotive industry. In February 2014, its Model S received the number-one ranking from Consumer Reports, becoming the first U.S. car ever to receive a ‘best overall’ pick. Just a year earlier, the Model S was named Automobile of the Year by Automobile magazine and Car of the Year by Motor Trend. According to Jake Fisher, head of auto testing for Consumer Reports, “It’s the very best car I’ve ever driven.” The breakthrough of the Model S speaks to Musk’s prowess in spotting a new market opportunity and seeing it through. Not only is the car admired by critics and envied by environmentally-oriented car enthusiasts, many financially-focused doubters jumped on board when Tesla announced a profit…

On Gender Lens Investing: Kaplan, S., VanderBrug, J. (2014): The Rise of Gender Capitalism; Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2014, 36-41; Rotman Management, Winter 2015, 40-44. On Gender as a Frame: Ridgeway, C. L. (2009): Framed Before We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations; Gender & Society, 23(2), 145-160. On Views of Meritocracy: Ladd, E. C., & Bowman, K. H. (1998): Attitudes toward economic inequality. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press publisher for the American Enterprise Institute; And, from a practitioner perspective: Zehner, J. “The Road Not Taken: What if I Had Never Left Goldman Sachs?” [linkedin.com/pulse/article/roadtaken-what-i-never-left-jacki-zehner.] Zehner also takes up this issue in “The Myth of Meritocracy,” The Conference Board Review, Spring 2010, p. 48. On Bias in Recruiting Processes: Steinpreis, R. E., Anders, K. A., & Ritzke, D. (1999):…

THE LAST TIME YOU WERE SICK, what was your hospital experience like? On your daily commute, does your public transportation system work well? And the last time you had to renew your passport, was the process quick and easy? While we don’t often think about it, each of these public service experiences is designed — for better or for worse — to produce a desired end result. Governments around the world are under unprecedented pressure to identify more cost-effective ways to deliver these and other services and produce better societal outcomes. Increasingly, the questions we are hearing in the corridors of power are: How can we make citizens’ lives better? How can we get more predictable outcomes from our policies? And, importantly, How can we drive fundamental change across government…

You believe that in the realm of decision making, a critical distinction must always be made. What is it? A distinction that is important, but often overlooked, is whether the decision is about something you can directly influence or not. Much of the work done by cognitive psychologists in the last 25 years is based on experiments where subjects make judgments about things they cannot influence — or choose between options that they cannot alter. That’s fine for understanding the basic mechanics of human cognition, but in real life, we don’t only make judgments about things we can’t influence, and we don’t only make choices from options that are presented to us. Very often, we can influence or change those things, and as a result, the lessons we have taken…

You have studied the ways in which innovation is contingent upon social structures. What are some of your key findings? First off, it’s worth noting that this stream of research constitutes a radical departure from the traditional heroic, ‘great man’ view of innovation. From Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Edison — right up to contemporary examples like Steve Jobs — innovation has been closely associated with ‘rare gifted visionaries’, who see the future in ways most people cannot. But innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum: we forget that Bell had Thomas Watson, Edison had a lab, and Jobs had Wozniak, Ive and others. Too often, we neglect the social milieu within which innovation is cultivated — the concrete, ongoing, everyday interactions inventors have with their colleagues. This ecosystem is what…

When we hear the term ‘imprinting’, many of us picture baby ducks following their mother, from a Psychology class presentation. How does imprinting play out in the workplace? The idea of workplace imprinting does come from that ‘Psychology 101’ concept. But the core idea is not about following a leader, it’s about the fact that there are periods in the life of an organism — whether it be a duck or a human being — that are more susceptible to external influence and more open to learning. In the case of the mother duck, that is the first organism a baby duck encounters during its ‘formative’ period. Building on that idea, researchers have adapted this concept to management and organizations more generally. There is research going back to the 1960s…

Describe the ‘norm of collectiveness’ that is replacing the age-old tradition of the individual genius in the realm of innovation. Most innovative and scientific endeavours are now collaborative ventures, with many diverse people contributing to them. Our familiar image of Einstein working alone in his lab and coming up with the Theory of Relativity doesn’t happen nearly as often today. Walter Isaacson’s book, The Innovators, emphasizes that collective development has become the norm, particularly for digital and Internet technologies. What are the implications for organizations who want to continuously innovate? The implications are that integration and ensuring crossfunctional interaction are critical for innovation. Silos may be individually creative, but really aligning innovation with your organization’s goals is a collaborative effort. You have noted that in this environment, knowledge workers face…

A number of years ago, a major research university asked me to write about lessons from the U.S. Military that had influenced how private sector organizations deal with change. One key example I shared was the development of After Action Reviews (AARs), during which a squad would assess the gaps between what had happened and what had been expected. This practice implicitly recognizes that in an uncertain environment, it is the learners that survive. Fast forward a few years and the acronym ‘VUCA’ — volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous — has become the defining characterization of the business environment in which we operate. Success today doesn’t come from planning further and further ahead; there is simply too much uncertainty. Instead, it comes from learning your way forward. Two particular workforce…