Posted by: Steve Hamm on May 12
The announcement just came down from the Gates Foundation that Jeff Raikes, a longtime Microsoft executive, will be the organization's new CEO. This is very good news. Raikes, who announced his retirement from Microsoft a couple of months ago, has long impressed me as a guy with great values. Sure, he always wanted to win, but, unlike some of his other Microsoft colleagues, he didn't seem to have a ruthless bone in his body. So now Gates Foundation not only has Bill Gates' and Warren Buffett's billions behind it, and, starting in the summer, Gates working there full time; now it will have an excellent operational leader in Raikes. I'm sure he will bring the same energy and commitment to saving the world that he did to making Microsoft one of the most successful corporations in history.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on May 12
Intel's Andy Grove has written a slew of books over the years. Now, from a former Intel executive who saw Grove as his "invisible mentor," comes a new book, Leadership The Hard Way. The author is Dov Frohman, who joined Intel in 1969, just a year after it was formed, and retired in 2001. He ran the company's Israeli operations for many years. Frohman learned management in the orbit of Grove, author of Only the Paranoid Survive and High Output Management, yet Frohman's book has a surprising thesis: Leadership can't be taught.
Continue reading "Leadership Lessons from Israel"
Posted by: Steve Hamm on May 09
One of the surprises in IBM's new global CEO study was that a small but significant percentage of the CEOs surveyed are now tuning into the expectations of what IBM calls the "socially-minded customer." When IBM's polsters asked 1,130 CEOs about factors guiding their strategic decisions and investments, 18 percent of them said they're adapting their businesses to be in sync with the social concerns of customers. That's up from 9 percent in 2004. This isn't just about running good corporate philanthropy projects. Customers now want socially-minded products, services, and supply chains. CEOS increasingly see this trend as an opportunity, rather than a cost burden. It's a way they can differentiate themselves, so they're investing heavily, says Marc Chapman, head of IBM's strategy and change consulting practice, which conducts the study every two years. This development is encouraging because it isn't just CSR window dressing. If these CEOs back their intentions with actions, it could move the needle--at least a bit--on global warming, poverty, and other social concerns.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on May 08
So far, during the US presidential election campaign, India hasn't become a political hot potato. At least one Indian leader hopes it won't stay that way. When I talked the issue over yesterday with Ronen Sen, India's ambassador to the US, at a McGraw-Hill reception for Indian minister of commerce Kamal Nath, Sen surprised me by saying he hoped outsourcing would become a hot issue in this political season. "That way, we'd have an opportunity to get the truth out: Unlike China, India has a balanced relationship with the United States. In fact, we buy more from the US than we sell." That may be true, but Sen's a major optimist if he puts his trust in the US political process and the US media to get to the truth.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on May 07
I just finished reading CK Prahalad's new book, The New Age of Innovation, where he talks about the need for companies to mobilize global networks. He calls the trend toward accessing resources from multiple sources the "second pillar of innovation" in all businesses. Yet Toshiba's Digital Products Division, which makes and sells laptop PCs, is doing just what he says not to do: While most PC companies outsource much of what it takes to develop and build a computer, Toshiba still does a lot of the work in-house. The company sees this strategy as the key to its ability to innovate and differentiate itself from its competitors. And it aims to harness this strategy to add 4 1/2 percent to it's current global marketshare of 10% over the next three years.
Continue reading "Toshiba Paddles Against the Current"
In a trend that's transforming companies, countries, and careers, work is rapidly being globalized. Employers get tasks done anywhere in the world where they can find the right talent at the right price. Senior writer 