| Links to Recent Articles On Executive Leadership For Builder Leaders & their Investors | |
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June 2015
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| Curated Articles |
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| Syndicated Publications | Business School Research | Independent Publications |
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| For CEOs | For PE Investors | For VC Investors |
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18th Annual Global CEO Survey Disruption. Uncertainty. Flexibility. Information. Technology. These buzzwords are liberally sprinkled throughout this survey, which aggregates information collected earlier this year. More than 1300 CEOs around the world shared with PricewaterhouseCoopers their views on the global economy, business strategies, and the outlook for their companies in the months and years ahead; and more than anything, they are highlighting the "soft" skills of leadership. Explore the data to see how CEOs are creating cultures that are helping their companies remain agile, flexible, and competitive. Read more » CEOs Face Reputation Pitfalls If They Avoid Social Media We are solidly in the age of social media; yet people remain profoundly naive as to its capability. The reluctance to adopt this particular technology is due, no doubt, to the way it democratizes perception ... but it can be an even greater problem to stay silent. Especially in the wake of a crises, every second of non-response is an invitation to speculation. This Wall Street Journal article outlines common mistakes, best practices, and recent cases to help you navigate this brave new world. |
Leapfrog Succession: A New Trend in Appointing CEOs? One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Information Age, from an industrial perspective, is the emergence of disruptive technologies and the normalization of the disruptive business model. It is therefore no coincidence that boards are now seeking a new kind of CEO -- a "modern CEO" -- who is characterized by his or her digital savvy and adaptive leadership. This BCG Perspectives article describes what may be a rising trend to tap as successor CEOs not those who are well seasoned from the second management level, or L2, but instead those individuals from L3 whose acumen and insight offset their relative inexperience. Building a forward-looking board. The more things change, the more they stay the same ... but they don't have to. Despite the transformative technological advancements in the last century, today's board agendas are still surprisingly similar to those of a century ago, when the second Industrial Revolution took place: it is not unusual for directors to spend 70% of their time on quarterly reports, audit reviews, budgets, and compliance -- rather than focusing their attention on developing the future prosperity and direction of the business. This McKinsey Quarterly article makes the case for developing a longer term perspective for the company and suggests ways to build a proactive, forward-looking board. |
Adapting and evolving: Global venture capital insights and trends, 2014 It's easy to get tunnel-visioned when you've got your nose to the grindstone, so it's good to stop for a coffee once in a while and get a sense of the bigger picture. This report, published by Ernst and Young in February 2015, examines key developments in the industry, analyses hotbeds in the global market, and describes markets emerging onto the VC scene. Take five for that cup of joe. As they say, a moment's insight is worth a lifetime of experience. Why Companies Fail -- and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back A baseball player who hits the ball 35% of the time is still considered a tremendous success -- even if that means he misses the ball the other 65% of the time. Similarly, when an entrepreneur is faced with failure, that should not be seen as an indictment of his capability, but an opportunity to learn from experience, acquire new insight, and make new contacts. This Harvard Business Review article reminds investors and entrepreneurs alike that failure is normal and that having the experience of failure can be more meaningful than only having the experience of success.
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| Executive Compensation | On Leadership | On Talent Acquisition and Interviewing |
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The Highest-Paid CEOs Are The Worst Performers, New Study Says This Forbes article, which summarizes research performed by professors at Purdue and the University of Cambridge, details how much worse a company does if its CEO is among the 5% highest-paid in the industry. The article suggests reasons why this might be the case, as well as possible feedback mechanisms that can be put into place in order to continue to lure top talent while making sure they maintain their A-game. Read more » Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones without Principals Are The headline for this article will no doubt lure you in, so be prepared for a very thorough dissertation of the idea that CEOs may be rewarded for positive changes in firm performance that are, in truth, beyond their control. This New York Times article, which summarizes the work of Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and Sendhil Mullainathan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, takes the study in a bit of a different direction, but we have linked to both for your perusal. Read more »
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The Most Innovative Companies Have Long-Term Leadership Innovation is disruptive. But to truly become the master of a market, one needs to lay the groundwork, and doing so takes time ... a resource that most CEOs do not have. Consider General Electric, which has been adding sensors to its products for over a decade, building up a library of proprietary software solutions that now legitimize the company's position as a leader provider in the "Internet of Things". But if the average CEO only has 9 years under her belt -- which means a great number of them have even fewer -- few really big picture ideas can come to fruition before the CEO ends up leaving. This Harvard Business Review article highlights excellent cases where long-term executive-ship was key to driving innovation. Becoming a Leader Who Fosters Innovation "Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. [...] It's about the people you have, how you're lead, and how much you get out of it." Forgive us for descending to ironical cliche and resorting to a Steve Jobs quote about innovation, but it's perfect for summarizing the sentiment of this white paper, published by the Center for Creative Leadership. The first few pages are spent discussing past research and accepted definitions, but the rest of it is an approachable and actionable discussion about how to implement effective creative leadership at all levels of organization, from individual contributors and first-level managers to executive leaders at the top. |
The 5 Stages of Executive Hiring Grief [and the 10 Steps to Avoid Them] BSG Team Ventures recently completed 3 searches in 75 days. Of course, a great deal of the credit goes to the clients that faciliated the process by enabling tight coordination and encouraging interview quality and speed. Unfortunately, this is not par for the course. When searches take longer, it is often because promising candidates take themselves out of the picture, and clients can end up going through stages of grief. Managing Director Clark Waterfall discusses the 5 Stages and what can be done to avoid having to grieve in the first place. Smaller executive search firms praised for expertise and better results Exactly what it says on the tin. This Executive Grapevine article is a review of a study performed by Hunt Scanlon, in which they analyzed the relative growth rate of different search firms. (We've linked to both items below.) |
| For Entrepreneurs | For Candidates | Books |
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The Venture Capital Club Gets Less Exclusive "O brave new world! That has such people in it!" Crowdfunding as a concept predates the information superhighway, but now that just about everyone and their wallet is online, investors are taking advantage of the massive loudspeaker that is the Internet to bring together people who may not have gotten a chance to meet each other face-to-face to invest in ventures they may otherwise not have heard of. This Wall Street Journal article describes a case of crowd-sourced venture capitalism and asks: is this democratization of a complicated process? or is it bullish strategy reminiscent of the last tech-bubble? Wearing Your Failures on Your Sleeve It's not a secret that as many as 75% of venture capital companies fail. That said, very few entrepreneurs are prepared for such an outcome, preferring instead to tiptoe around "the F-word". This New York Times article describes an unlikely conference that arose from the idea that people want to commiserate and share about their "biggest fail", and draw from the experience and wisdom of other entrepreneurs who have faced adversity head-on. |
24 LinkedIn Rules You Might Be Breaking New media for communication means new rules of etiquette. For example, no one expects a thank you card after a LinkedIn invitation ... but what do they expect? This Forbes article lays it out, clean and simple. How to Show Trustworthiness in a Job Interview Odds are it's not your first rodeo, so you know better than to emphasize what can be gleaned from your resume -- e.g., skills, experience. But it may have been a while since the last time you were on the candidate side of the interview table, so you should check out this Harvard Business Review article for tips on how to frame yourself so you can get to that next step. |
Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude Whatever side of the equation you're on, this book is a must-have. Mark Murphy, founder and CEO of leadership training and research firm Leadership IQ, aggregates here for your perusal data on 20,000 new hires, 46% of which failed during the first 18 months. As you can probably guess, only a small fraction of these failures - 11% - were due to lack of skill; the rest were due to attitudinal disparity. We all know hiring mistakes are terribly expensive, and this book is written with the idea that its recommendations are immediately actionable. Buy the book » Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future Paypal co-founder and first outside investor of Facebook Peter Thiel presents a new way of thinking about innovation in a treatise on progress. "1 to n"-type progress is the refinement or development of a pre-existing technology. "0 to 1"-type progress is the sort of technology that breaks new ground and creates new industries. By inviting the reader to learn to ask the questions that lead to value in unexpected places, Peter Thiel shows that "0 to 1"-type progress is not limited to Silicon Valley-types. Buy the book » |
| Et Alia | Et Alia | Video |
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The Top 10 Business Lessons of 2014 "Where can personal lives, family, and career intersect? How can businesses impact the world—and their bottom lines—for the better? Where do we find meaning in our work? |
The 18 Best Infographics of 2014 You could sift through piles of dense data sets in an attempt to understand the trends and discoveries that emerged in history, psychology, current events, and even fictional dragons in 2014. Or you could look at these infographics, which visualize otherwise overwhelming data as beautiful charts, graphs, and maps. |
Leading Quietly [54:46] For many of us, our conception of a leader is closer to the captain of a ship than to the breath that leaves a ripple in the water. Accordingly, when called to lead, the inclination is to put oneself in the center and inspire and direct. That will work for the right kind of employee, the sort that is a good follower. But what is the best way to manage self-starting, motivated employees? Rock star Wharton professor Adam Grant -- who is frequently cited as one of the world's best 40 business school professors under 40 -- uses anecdotes and case studies to examine the benefits and nuances to a more introverted style of leadership that evinces the behavioral integrity and authenticity which will inspires one's juniors to work harder and smarter. |
