What’s the most important thing to learn if you want to advance your career?

Should you gain diverse experience? Specialize? Go back to school for an advanced degree? Attend workshops? Get a coach?

While all of these career decisions may undoubtedly prove beneficial, book smarts don’t guarantee good teachers, nurses, doctors, businesspeople or leaders.

In today’s emerging right-brain economy, most professions require a set of skills and characteristics that cannot be taught in schools. Professionals who have the edge — those singled out for high-potential programs — are skilled at forging meaningful relationships.

The adage “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care” has never been more relevant.

While a good education is important, it’s no longer enough. Unfortunately, most business schools aren’t teaching the emotional competencies future leaders require. Perhaps these skills are far beyond a classroom’s reach.

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• Leadership Skills for the 21st Century
• Training Leaders for Future Complexities
• The Boss Is Last
• Combining Smarts with Heart

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Career Strengths for the Future: Show You Care

“In my fifty-two years in business, I’ve never seen an issue galvanize people in a company like sustainability.” Ray Anderson, founder of Interface, Inc.

Sustainability is at the very core of survival. No company or society can last unless it cares for its resources and capital — human, financial and environmental. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Consumers are going green. Their support for sustainable products and practices is growing worldwide. Some companies are wondering if now’s the time to adopt sustainability practices as part of their corporate strategy.

In the most basic terms, greening a business is about doing more with less, which can quickly save you money. Going green also means overcoming several mental hurdles, foremost of which is the expense involved in embracing environmental practices.

It’s a mistake to believe that becoming eco-friendly means unnecessary expenses as we face a global economic slump. Many experts assert that organizations should meet financial challenges by turning sustainability into innovation’s new frontier.

In fact, becoming eco-friendly will soon be a necessary cost of doing business. It’s no longer enough to meet minimum legal compliance for environmental standards. A true competitive advantage lies in influencing economic recovery with forward-thinking sustainability practices.

People at all corporate levels must focus on the following keys:

• Understand what climate change means for business (which is very different from everyone agreeing on the science).
• See the long-term constraints in natural resources and nonrenewable energy.
• View the business in the context of the full value chain, from suppliers to customers and beyond.

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• Corporate Social Responsibility vs. Bottom Line
• Stage 1: Viewing Compliance as Opportunity
• Stage 2: Making Value Chains Sustainable
• Stage 3: Designing Sustainable Products and Services
• Stage 4: Developing New Business Models
• Stage 5: Creating Next-Practice Platforms
• Green Recovery
• Green Engagement
• Green Thinking
• Green Hiring

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“It’s an environment the likes of which managers have never seen—a Great Disruption in which the old rules for success become recipes for failure, and ‘doing more with less’ will not be nearly enough to survive.”—Scott D. Anthony, The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times, Harvard Business Press, 2009

The inevitable constraints this tough economy imposes on companies provide fertile ground for innovation because necessity truly is the mother of invention. Companies that learn to innovate more quickly, cheaply and with less risk will emerge from the downturn stronger than ever.

To succeed, smart executives will need to adopt a different mindset and effective frameworks to determine what to start doing, stop doing and do differently. Consultant and author Scott D. Anthony, who earned his MBA at Harvard Business School, prescribes a disruptive-innovation mindset. His book is well-worth the read for historical perspectives and inspiration.

Over the last decade, technological improvements have made starting and scaling businesses easier than ever. Brazil, Russia, China, India and other emerging markets prove U.S. leaders have more competitors at home and abroad. Industries are frantically converging and colliding.

These changes make it more difficult for great companies to maintain success—a problem that has caused leaders to lose sleep for some time (even before the 2008 financial market collapse).

Tough business environments force companies to take a hard look at innovation. While output may shrink and unemployment is sure to rise, companies that master these challenges have a chance to thrive. Those that don’t are sure to struggle.

A Historical Perspective

While no one can predict with certainty how the global economic crisis will play out, many companies face serious challenges:

• Should they cut costs and streamline innovation projects until business picks up?
• Should they play it safe until the current storm passes?

If history is a guide, the answer is a definitive “no.” We can restore hope and gain a better perspective by taking a step back and considering how past downturns were resolved.

Many successful companies have been launched during recessions. Grim economic times can highlight previously hidden problems or cause old problems to intensify. When a deep-seated customer problem emerges, search for novel ways to address it.

A number of game-changing products, services and business-model innovations were developed or launched in daunting economic climates.

Thirteen of the 25 companies on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as of December 2008, were formed during an economic downturn, including 3M, General Electric, Microsoft and Walt Disney.

Disruptive Innovations

Instead of trying to best their competitors, disruptors change the game. They typically transform existing markets or create new ones by focusing on convenience, simplicity, accessibility or affordability.
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• Disruptive Innovations
• Bad Times, Good Times
• The Transformation Imperative
• Disruptive Guidelines
• The Executive Challenge

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We need a better way to evaluate our business leaders, assert James O’Toole and Warren Bennis in a recent Harvard Business Review article (“A Culture of Candor,” June 2009). It’s no longer prudent to judge American corporate leaders’ performance solely on the extent to which they create wealth for investors.

Moving forward, a new metric is proposed: the extent to which executives create organizations that are economically, ethically and socially sustainable.

The short-term thinking that Wall Street typically rewards no longer seems wise. Are these new ideals too much to strive for? Will they be forgotten once profits return?

Unless corporations extend their thinking and strategies beyond short-term profits, they will miss crucial opportunities and find themselves unable to survive a rapidly changing environment.

Wise leaders must recognize that increased transparency is a fundamental first step to accomplishing the tasks required for economic, ethic and social sustainability, Bennis and O’Toole conclude.

The standard business definition of transparency usually means full disclosure of financial information to investors. But such a narrow interpretation produces an unhealthy focus on legal compliance, which usually means over concern with “the letter of the law” to the exclusion of others’ needs.

Inside and Out

Broadly defined, transparency should mean the degree to which information flows freely within an organization, among managers and employees, and outward to stakeholders.

A company cannot be transparent to its shareholders without first being transparent to its workforce.

A January 2009 Harvard Business Review survey revealed that, over the last year, readers reported having 76% less trust in U.S. companies’ senior management and 51% less trust in non-U.S. companies. (Of the 1,000+ respondents, 60% were based outside the United States.)
That’s a significant drop in confidence levels.

Roughly half of all managers don’t trust their leaders. Exact figures and study results vary, but no data compiled over the last 7 years have shown more than 50% trust for company leaders.

Companies that foster a culture of transparency and trust clearly have a competitive advantage for sustainable success.

Companies cannot innovate or rapidly respond to new challenges unless all employees have access to relevant, timely and valid information.

Easier Said Than Done

The obvious question remains: Why wouldn’t companies promote openness and a free flow of information?

Several issues seem to arise:

• Can people communicate upward and do so honestly?
• Are teams capable of challenging their own assumptions?
• Can boards of directors communicate important messages to company leadership?

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The complete 2,000 word article includes these important concepts:

Inside and Out
Easier Said Than Done
Knowledge Is Power
7 Steps to Transparency
1. Tell the Truth
2. Encourage People to Speak Truth to Power
3. Reward Contrarians
4. Practice Having Unpleasant Conversations
5. Diversify Information Sources
6. Admit Mistakes
7. Build Organizational Support for Transparency
Board Vigilance
Trust
Transparent Communications

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“The empires of the future will be empires of the mind.” — Winston Churchill

In a ruthless, globally competitive market, companies cannot afford the luxury of holding onto more employees than they need. With economic constraints and technological advances, some jobs are being eliminated completely — a trend that will surely continue.

A new generation of sophisticated information and communication technologies, together with new forms of business reorganization and management, is wiping out full-time employment for millions of blue- and white-collar workers.

Unless you want to go after menial work, you’ll need to acquire a disciplined education and variety of experiences, while also developing a highly valued mind.

We’ve all read about accelerating globalization, information overload, the drastic ascent of technology and science, and the threat of growing competition. Each of these challenges will require new ways of thinking and learning for those hoping to create a successful future.

Our Mind(s) Matter

In Five Minds for the Future (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), author and noted psychologist Howard Gardner says our mind — actually, minds — matters.

According to Gardner, five cognitive capacities will be in great demand in the years ahead:

1. The Disciplined Mind
2. The Synthesizing Mind
3. The Creating Mind
4. The Respectful Mind
5. The Ethical Mind

Developing these mental capacities equips us to deal with future expectations, as well as that which cannot be anticipated.

If we fail to develop these minds, we’ll be at the mercy of forces we can’t understand: overwhelmed by information, unable to succeed in the workplace, and incapable of making judicious decisions in personal and professional matters.

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• The Disciplined Mind
• The Synthesizing Mind
• The Creating Mind
• The Respectful Mind
• The Ethical Mind
• The Future Is Now

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In a ruthless, globally competitive market, companies can no longer afford
the luxury of holding on to more employees than they need. Workers who are not
contributing fully to the bottom line are let go.

Analysts predict that, in this century, employment, as we know it is likely to
be phased out in industrialized nations of the world. Human labor is being
systematically eliminated from the economic process. A new generation of
sophisticated information and communication technologies, together with new
forms of business reorganization and management, is wiping out full-time
employment for millions of blue- and white-collar workers.

Manufacturing, as well as much of the service sector, is undergoing a
transformation as profound as the one experienced by the agricultural sector at the beginning of the last century.

What do these changes signify for you? More evidence that there is a new economy – one that is booming for some jobs, and devastating for others. So what about job security?

According to U.S. Census and Department of Labor statistics, “more Americans work in the computer industry as a whole (equipment, semiconductors and computer services) than in the auto, auto parts, steel, mining and petroleum-refining industries combines…. More Americans work in the biotechnology than in the entire machine-tool industry…. Twice as many Americans make surgical and medical instruments as make plumbing and heating products” (Beck, 1998).

All this brings up the question of how to cope with constant job insecurity and
never-ending change. What is the future of work? How do you develop a proactive and positive approach? What is the best way to make yourself into a valuable employee? Experts agree that job security lies in the person, not the position . Ask yourself what you can do to improve your chances of being appreciated as a valuable employee.

Important concepts covered in the full, 2,000-word article:
The shift from Industrial to Informational Jobs
A New Meaning for Job Security
Seven Approaches to Creating Personal Job Security
Trends for the Near Future
Hot Jobs for the Future
Recommended Reading on the Future of Work

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As opportunities for global expansion increase, so does the trend toward more
diversity in the workplace. Successful companies are recruiting professionals
with different backgrounds, cultures, styles and motivations. Yet this great
resource presents increased possibilities for misunderstanding and cultural
blunders.

It is obvious that organizations will need to expand the capacity for people to
handle the challenges of working with other cultures if they are to participate
successfully. Those companies that continue to struggle with domestic diversity
will find themselves even more challenged.

People must move beyond simply accepting cultural identities and differences to
a place where they can be leveraged for competitive advantage, superior
performance and creative growth. There is tremendous creative energy and
innovation that can be harnessed when people from different perspectives work
successfully together.

Global business is challenging in large part because cultural habits and
attitudes blind people to other ways of doing things and make them unwilling or
unable to change.

The full 2,000-word article includes the following concepts:

Six dimensions to consider when doing business with a foreign culture
Different Ways of Doing Business
One Size Does Not Fit All
Leveraging Cultural Diversity
A List of Resources

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