Leadership Reading to Start Your Week: 11/28/16

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Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms, to start off your work week. I’m pointing you to articles about leadership, strategy, industries, innovation, women and work, and work and learning now and in the future. Highlights include leadership lessons from the Paris terror attacks, what AI can and can’t do, why artificial intelligence won’t replace CEOs, three myths that are killing your creativity, explaining the persistence of gender inequality,

Be sure to look for dots that you can connect.

Note: Some links require you to register or are to publications that have some form of limited paywall.

Thinking about Leadership and Strategy

From Eric J. McNulty: Leaders Need to Slow Down to Speed Up

“It has never been more important for leaders to learn from and respond quickly to economic, political, and competitive changes. In a world where change is constant, that response must be rapid and inspiring.”

From Augusto Giacoman: The Serious Fun of Shared Experiences at Work

“What do underwear-clad subway riders and chocolate eaters have to do with business? Everything. Shared experiences are a powerful tool for managers to build high-performing teams. They help to shape values, norms, and behaviors that allow people to get work done more efficiently and effectively. In fact, researchers from the University of New South Wales’s School of Business studying leadership found a productivity uptick of 18 percent in teams in which leaders fostered shared experiences among employees.”

From Loic Sadoulet: Leadership Lessons from the Paris Terror Attacks

“In times of crisis, be clear about where you want to go and flexible in how you get there.”

Industries and Analysis

From Kyle Arnold: Amazon, Uber new players in food delivery

“Those companies are bringing big name recognition to an already busy restaurant delivery market. Experts say web-based restaurant ordering and delivery is about to upend the food-service industry, the same way e-commerce has done with retail. A report from Morgan Stanley says it could be a $210 billion business within a few years, compared with about $11 billion today.”

From Thomas Czigler, Alexander Kaulfersch, Kedar Naik, and Patrick Schulze: How cement companies create value: The five elements of a successful commercial strategy

“As the dynamics of the cement industry change, successful companies are creating value by focusing on their micromarkets. Here’s how they do it.”

From Aaron Cheris, Darrell Rigby and Suzanne Tager: Will Amazon Steal Christmas?

“The holiday shopping season is now officially under way, and Amazon.com is busy filling stockings. The online juggernaut continues to expand its offerings—notably in apparel, groceries and Amazon-branded electronics—while maintaining aggressive pricing on best sellers and resetting shoppers’ expectations in terms of service and shipping speed.”

Innovation and Technology

From Andrew Ng: What AI Can and Can’t Do

“Surprisingly, despite AI’s breadth of impact, the types of it being deployed are still extremely limited. Almost all of AI’s recent progress is through one type, in which some input data (A) is used to quickly generate some simple response (B). For example:”

From Judy D. Olian: Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace CEOs

“A recent McKinsey study suggests that 45 percent of all on-the-job activities can be automated by deploying AI. That includes file clerks whose jobs can become 80 percent automated, or CEOs’ jobs that can be 20 percent automated because AI systems radically simplify and target CEOs’ reading of reports, risk detection, or pattern recognition.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story

From Jessica Stillman: 3 Myths That Are Killing Your Creativity

“Not creative? The problem isn’t your lack of ability; it’s the myths you believe about innovation.”

Women and the Workplace

From Margarethe Wiersema and Marie Louise Mors: What Board Directors Really Think of Gender Quotas

“To better understand perceptions of quotas, we interviewed over 60 male and female directors in both the U.S. and Europe who had served on a total of over 300 publicly traded company boards, as well as several U.S. and European executive recruiters. Our study includes interviews with directors of companies located in countries where quotas have been achieved (e.g., Iceland, Norway) as well as in countries still working toward achieving their gender diversity quotas (e.g., France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK). We also include directors of companies in countries where no goals or quotas have been set (e.g., Australia, Denmark, the U.S.). This comparative investigation revealed some interesting insights into the issue.”

From Joel Garfinkle: Women in leadership: 3 strategies for getting ahead

“You are good at what you do. You’re competent, your team thinks highly of you, and your boss gave you a great performance review last quarter. Still, even with nearly everyone around you agreeing you’ve got what it takes, you can’t just rest on your laurels or wait until someone notices that you deserve recognition.”

From Irene Padavic, Robin J. Ely, and Erin M. Reid: Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture

“A common explanation for women’s stalled advancement into high-level positions is that women’s family obligations conflict with the long hours of these jobs. Work-family accommodations have done little to help women advance, however. And men also experience work-family conflict yet nevertheless advance. This study argues that women’s advancement is slowed because of social defenses at the organizational level, along with wider cultural beliefs that are resistant to change.”Watch Full Movie Online Streaming Online and Download

Work and Learning Now and in the Future

From Elizabeth Doty: Why Your Employees Are Always Putting Out Fires

“Company leaders, consider the following questions: How many surprises have you dealt with this week? How many customer relationships have had to be rescued or late orders escalated? How many apologies delivered, numbers explained, or presentations redone?”

From Quy Huy: The Harmful Effects of Workplace Incivility

“Low-level unpleasantness in the workplace can have disastrous results – but managers can do something about it.”

From the London School of Economics: From gratitude to resentment: The downside of working from home

“With 4.2 million people working from home in the UK, employers need to be better equipped to manage them, writes Esther Canonico.”

More Leadership Posts from Wally Bock

Book Review: Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World

My review of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World by Kathleen Eisenhardt and Donald Sull.

By and About Leaders: 11/22/16

Pointers to pieces by and about Lauren Salazar, Alexa Long, Heather McClung, Dion Wiesler, David Cordani, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jean-Claude Biver.

From the Independent Business Blogs: 11/23/16

Pointers to posts by Kate Nasser, Susan Mazza, Marcella Bremer, Julie Winkle Giulioni, and Mary Jo Asmus.

Stories and Strategies from Real Life: 11/25/16

Pointers to stories TransPerfect, Campbell Soup, Amazon, Google, and Angie’s List

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