The Smart Manager: Future of Management

Back to the Future
Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, Pg 13

Having compiled the Thinkers50 since 2001, Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove highlight how the 2015 ranking was perhaps the most intriguing and significant. According to them, it marks significant changes in the way organizations are managed and led—and how we think about organizations.

Four Reasons We Settle for ‘Good Enough’
Marshall Goldsmith, Pg 16

The moment we stop striving and begin to coast on our good reputation—this is the perilous moment when we settle for ‘good enough.’ And this is the moment that, at best, change stops and, at worst, we revert to our old ways.

Path to Equilibrium Change
Interview with Roger Martin, pg 20

How would you define the role of a ‘social entrepreneur’ as opposed to a social service provider or social advocate? There are two dimensions we think about when we make these distinctions. First is whether the actor is attempting to ameliorate a bad situation or transform it. And second is whether the actor creates the solution himself/herself or convinces another party to do so.

Unleashing Collective Genius
Linda Hill, pg 25

What many of us consider ‘great leadership’ does not work when it comes to leading innovation.

Although there is a great deal of research on leadership and on innovation, very little looks at the connection between the two. Along with three collaborators, I have spent over a decade studying exceptional leaders of innovation from diverse countries and industries. Some led teams, others led vast enterprises or global networks. All built organizations able to innovate not once, but time and again.

Collaboration: Rise of the Third Wave
Rachel Botsman, pg 32

The transformative power of collaborative consumption… It changes the way we live by transforming our relationship to ownership. We do not have to individually own things such as cars that sit idle in our garage or specialized equipment that have limited use, but can pay for shared access. Indeed, an interesting question is emerging: what does it mean to own something in the digital age?

How to Achieve Four-Way Wins
Stew Friedman, pg 36

Work-life integration as opposed to work-life balance… Too many people believe that to achieve great things we must make brutal sacrifices, to succeed in work we must focus single-mindedly, at the expense of everything else in life. Even those who reject the idea of a zero-sum game fall prey to a kind of binary thinking revealed by the term we use to describe the ideal lifestyle: ‘work/life balance’. The idea that ‘work’ competes with ‘life’ ignores ‘life’ is actually the intersection and interaction of four major domains: work, home, community, and the private self.

What Leadership Looks Like
Zhang Ruimin, Pg 40

Before the Thinkers50 2015 event, myself and Des Dearlove found ourselves in a dining room over a pub in London’s Belgravia. Our guests for the evening were Zhang Ruimin of Haier, his interpreter, and two colleagues. Then for three riveting hours, we heard the story of Haier and Zhang Ruimin’s amazing work in reinventing management and organizations for the twenty-first century. Along the way what became clear was that we were in the presence of a remarkable man. A leader.

Why Your Company Might be Risking a Kodak Moment
Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur, Pg 48

You can be an innovative company and still go bankrupt. Take Kodak for example. They were a pretty innovative company, but that did not prevent them from going bust. Despite inventing the core technology used in digital cameras today, Kodak’s technology innovation was not enough for the company to figure out a business model that could be a central piece to their future growth strategy.