Rotman Management Fall 2019

THE STATE OF LEADERSHIP has been in the spotlight in recent years, for good reason. With employee engagement at an all-time low, the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer once again demonstrated a serious crisis of confidence in institutional leaders to help us navigate our turbulent world. However, this year there was a surprising bright side for organizational leaders: Globally, 76 per cent of people trust ‘My Employer’ to do what is right — significantly more than business in general (56 per cent), government (48 per cent), the media (47 per cent) and NGOs (57 per cent). And where trust grows, engagement and value creation are never far behind. What exactly is driving increasing trust in employers? It’s not simply operational excellence or decisions that impact jobs. An organization’s contributions to society, its values…

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 at…

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 what they…

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 imperatives…

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 we will…

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 this: I…