The below is an excerpt of a white paper by Kirk Lawrence, program director at UNC Executive Development. In The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman notes that the rate of change today is much different than in the past. “Whenever civilization has gone through one of these disruptive, dislocating technical revolutions—like Gutenberg’s introduction of the printing press—the whole world has changed in profound ways,” he writes. “But there is something different about the flattening of the world that is going to be qualitatively different from other such profound changes: the speed and breadth with which it is taking hold….This flattening process is happening at warp speed and directly or indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once. The Read More
Tag Archives: management strategy
How to Close the Gaps in Leadership Development
“Simply put, successful organizations have strong leaders,” says Brigitta Theleman, director for UNC Kenan-Flagler’s OneMBA program. Organizations with strong leaders outperform other organizations in workforce retention, employee engagement, and organizational performance (including financial performance, customer satisfaction, service quality and productivity). Unfortunately, identifying the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) needed in strong leaders and creating corporate cultures that encourage the development of these is a challenge for which many organizations struggle; only about two-fifths of respondents to a recent American Management Association survey agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that their “leadership development program is highly effective.” The Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of Strong Leaders Strong leaders, according to various studies, possess the following KSAs: The ability to drive and Read More
If your customers don’t win, you can’t win for long
If your customers don’t win, you can’t win for long. You have to do something for your customer that makes your customer better off financially and get credit for it. You want your customer to feel like they are a valued partner and that both companies working together benefit financially. Then, your customers are likely to give you more and more of their business. Somehow, many companies have lost their way and became too focused on what is important to them and how they can win. While these are important considerations, to win long-term, in a sustainable way, your customer has to win. If you think about two companies, so you’re not just talking about two individuals, you’re talking about Read More
The power of powerless speech
Are there situations where warmth is more important than perceived competence for you to gain power and prestige? Despite suggestions by the popular press that assertive, powerful speech is needed to seem competent and thus gain status and leadership within a group or company, this is not always true. How warm a person seems to be trumps how competent they are perceived to be in some situations, according to new research from Alison Fragale, assistant professor of organizational behavior at UNC Kenan-Flagler. In her research, Fragale studied what she describes as “powerless speech,” which has commonly been believed to make a person seem tentative and uncertain and less likely to be given a promotion or other status. Powerless speech is Read More