Are you hiring and using interim managers wisely? Why is it that some companies attain exceptional results from interim manager hirings and some are disappointed?
It has little to do with the quality of interim manager candidates. The only way they become candidates is by demonstrating exceptional skill in implementing the kinds of solutions that clients want. Why, then, do results sometimes go awry?
Unfortunately, some companies treat hiring an interim manager like a magic potion: Drop someone – anyone – into the position and wait for amazing results. That simply doesn’t work.
To produce the exceptional results expected of interim managers,...
Giving feedback is hard.
Giving good feedback is even harder.
Giving good feedback across cultures is next to impossible.
On my first Canadian project two decades ago, my Canadian boss "suggested that I think about" doing something in a different manner. So I did. I thought about it, and I decided not to change anything.
Not long afterwards, our Canadian client provided feedback on my first deliverable. I was elated to hear that I had "some original ideas" and that my report was "relatively fine." They concluded with a suggestion that perhaps I "should consider rewording parts of it."
Never the one to go fixing what's...
If you’ve read the many predictions about the future of AI, you’ve likely found them to be wildly different. They range from AI spelling doom for humanity, to AI ushering in Golden Age of peace, harmony and culture, to AI producing barely a blip on society’s path toward ever-greater technological achievement.
Those three views – dystopian, utopian and organic – present issues we need to consider as we move deeper toward an AI-integrated future. Yet they also contain exaggerations and false assumptions that we need to separate from reality.
The Dystopian View of the AI Future
Those with a dystopian view of...
It’s almost impossible to turn around nowadays without finding another article predicting the impact that AI and other emerging technologies – the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution – will have on our future. It’s one of the hottest topics being discussed by forward-thinking business leaders today. And well it should be. The fact that we are on the cusp of dramatic change in how business, workplaces and our very lives are carried out is inescapable.
Some writers picture a utopia where humankind is freed from manual labor, where machines do all the work and all people receive a universal basic income...
The face of interim management is changing. Traditionally, an interim manager was someone at the end of his career who chose interim management to extend his working years.
This is changing fast. An increasing number of managers – both men and women – have entered the market in recent years, intent on making a career of interim management. That’s no surprise. The rewards of interim management make it a great career choice if you have the skills and personality for it, and don’t mind its few disadvantages.
Interim management benefits
Interim executives enjoy the challenge of working on different assignments with tight...
Modern theories of the firm remain focused on transaction costs, operational efficiency, employee motivation, leadership, strategy and other related factors. While any of these may support our success at various times, none of them alone will facilitate it in the long run. Even strategy, while vitally important, is set at a point in time and is vulnerable to change. The one factor that enables our company’s long-term viability is Enterprise Resilience which enables a company to adapt to a change.
Technological Upheaval
We are in an ever-shifting maelstrom of change. Climate change causes more frequent and intense natural disasters. Changing climate...
“Organizational bullshit” is a term coined to describe deceptive, vague, or otherwise misleading communication within an organization. “Organizational bullshit” is not an expletive. It is a legitimate academic term and the subject of serious and growing academic research on leadership. In his 1986 essay, “On Bullshit,” which later developed into a book by the same name, Princeton philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt, was the first to look at the phenomenon through a more analytical lens, making it something that can be identified and, therefore, addressed.
Frankfurt proposed that bullshit is different from lying. Unlike a liar that intentionally subverts the truth,...
Don’t expect this to be either of the typical articles about diversity. I’m here not to fawn over its benefits nor to rant about who does or doesn’t get hired. I’m here, instead, to ask why we react to it in the baffling way we do, why it often accomplishes the exact opposite of its stated goals and what dramatic approaches we might take to make achieving its goals more realistic.
Announce a round of diversity training, or of progress toward reaching diversity hiring goals, and one thing is guaranteed. Eye rolls and sarcastic comments among workers will abound behind...
When crisis strikes your business, what can you do? As you try to pick up the pieces, at some point your mind would likely turn to the fantasy of bringing in an accomplished executive with extensive experience in the exact type of crisis your business is experiencing, just long enough to get you through it. That’s no fantasy, though. Such an option exists.
It’s called Interim Management, and it’s one of the latest forms of troubleshooting management techniques to emerge in recent years. While similar to bringing in a management consultant, it has striking advantages that can help your business...
Today’s business leadership face a conundrum. Artificial Intelligence (AI) unquestionably will play an enormous role in the future of their organizations and the business environment in which they operate, but what effects will it have? Prognosticators have wildly different visions of the future it will create, ranging from causing the extinction of humanity to ushering in a Golden Age in which machines provide all humanity’s needs and free us to focus on altruistic service to one another and the advancement of human culture.
Both of these most commonly heard predictions are based on assumptions that lead to wild speculation that...
If you’ve read the many predictions about the future of AI, you’ve likely found them to be wildly different. They range from AI spelling doom for humanity, to AI ushering in Golden Age of peace, harmony and culture, to AI producing barely a blip on society’s path toward ever-greater technological achievement.
Those three views – dystopian, utopian and organic – present issues we need to consider as we move deeper toward an AI-integrated future. Yet they also contain exaggerations and false assumptions that we need to separate from reality.
The Dystopian View of AI Future
Those with a dystopian view of emerging technologies...
There are many adjectives that could be used to describe the global outbreak of COVID-19, but perhaps the simplest might be: fast.
The disease has spread quicker than most people can mentally digest. By nature, humans process linearly. This pandemic has been a lesson in exponential thinking for the common man. Those who don’t spend their time contemplating Moore's Law or compound interest have felt overwhelmed by infection or mortality rates that double daily.
In response, governments, businesses, monetary institutions, education systems and the many other players in corporate and civil life have acted at high speed. It is easy to...
AI’s effect on the workplace will not be limited merely to repetitive, production line-type jobs. Increasingly, it also enters the realm of highly trained knowledge workers. It will also affect those who manage workers currently employed in such jobs. AI likely will reshape jobs all the way up to the C-level offices. That doesn’t mean, though, that managers and executives will no longer be needed. They simply need to prepare themselves for shifts in their work responsibilities.
In my latest article Why AI Is Neither the End of Civilization nor the Beginning of Nirvana I argued that AI will bring...
Neurodiversity is the concept that recognizes and embraces the wide range of human neurological variations. It acknowledges that individuals with diverse cognitive abilities and neurological differences, such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions, bring unique strengths and perspectives to our species. Over time, neurodiversity has played a crucial role in the development and progress of the human species, contributing to our adaptability, innovation, and problem-solving abilities.
Diverse Problem-Solving and Innovation
The human species has thrived due to its ability to adapt to different environments and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems. Neurodiversity plays a crucial role in this...
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government efforts to address this issue. Considering its success in developing research programs at its universities, its mediocre rankings overall in technology development is disappointing. Those programs alone have not been enough to translate into entrepreneurial innovation.
A 2017 C.D. Howe Institute study points out that, even though Canadians have been at the forefront of breakthroughs in emerging technologies, in many cases, the chief beneficiaries of those breakthroughs have been other nations’ economies. Canada needs to take a stronger role in building an environment in which...