Management and Strategy

Awesome talk on choices..  

Really good article by James Dyson on business week. Education is key to long term success. To make the economy build to last you have to focus on education at every level…

Photograph of Lewis Hine/Redux Photo

President Obama is right: America’s long-term success hinges on its ability to invent technology the world wants. It seems simple, but getting America back in the business of making things isn’t. It’s a global process. An idea born in Silicon Valley could be engineered in Switzerland, tested in China, and assembled in Taiwan. A stimulus to boost manufacturing may help the U.S. economy in the short term, but reinvigorating postwar-style production or space-race ingenuity is impossible without an increasingly capable workforce. Business demands it. And without it, long-term success will remain elusive.

These days manufacturing extends far beyond the assembly line. It’s about inventing and solving problems: researching, testing, and experimenting with ideas and technology. The development of new products more and more defies borders. It’s impossible to make electronic goods exclusively on U.S. or U.K. soil—the supplier base, infrastructure, and often the expertise needed to produce everything from electric cars to solar panels is dispersed.

Within that context, it’s easier to understand why highly skilled jobs are going the way of assembly and manufacture. New research by the National Science Foundation (NSF) reports that more companies are taking research and development—and 85 percent of the new jobs it creates—overseas. Still, this is by no means a one-way street. As Caterpillar shifts some R&D abroad, it’s considering moving parts of its manufacturing operations back to the U.S. Creating new products is no longer one size fits all.

But constructing an economy that’s built to last depends on a ready supply of talented individuals: people who invent, create, and develop the ideas that will drive exports and those who can assemble them. China gets it. To make its economy more knowledge and technology intensive, China is investing heavily in science and engineering education, infrastructure, and R&D support. Already wages are increasing, the middle class is growing, and the country is developing new technology rather than just assembling products. And while the U.S. continues to file more patents than any other country, the Far East’s investment in R&D, fueled by China, matched U.S. contributions in 2009, according to the National Science Board’s report, Science and Engineering Indicators 2012.

Creating an Economy That’s ‘Built to Last’ – Businessweek

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership is a great read for people who want to improve their Leadership skills. I have read many articles on leadership and everyone of them focuses on different aspects of leadership.

Best part about this article is it tells you to focus internally to look at your own history and learn from that. Authors focus on following key aspects of your life to learn from

• Learn from your own life story
• Know your authentic self
• Practice your values and principles
• Balance your extrinsic and intrinsic motivations
• Build a support team to learn and get guidance from
• Integrate your life by staying grounded

Original Article: http://hbr.org/2007/02/discovering-your-authentic-leadership/ar/1

Authors: Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean and Diana Mayer

Synopsis:

During the past 50 years, leadership scholars have conducted more than 1,000 studies in an attempt to determine the definitive styles, characteristics, or personality traits of great leaders. None of these studies has produced a clear profile of the ideal leader. Thank goodness. If scholars had produced a cookie-cutter leadership style, individuals would be forever trying to imitate it. They would make themselves into personae, not people, and others would see through them immediately.

No one can be authentic by trying to imitate someone else. You can learn from others’ experiences, but there is no way you can be successful when you are trying to be like them. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. Amgen CEO and president Kevin Sharer, who gained priceless experience working as Jack Welch’s assistant in the 1980s, saw the downside of GE’s cult of personality in those days. “Everyone wanted to be like Jack,” he explains. “Leadership has many voices. You need to be who you are, not try to emulate somebody else.”

This Article by Daniel Goleman is a great read on different leadership styles and how leaders can use them in different scenarios to get results. In this article Goleman explores which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. He outlines six distinct leadership styles, each one springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Each style has a distinct effect on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and, in turn, on its financial performance.

You have to read the article to get the full picture. You can access it at http://hbr.org/product/leadership-that-gets-results/an/R00204-PDF-ENG . Below is a preview…

1. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance.
2. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision.
3. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.
4. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.
5. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.
6. Coaching leaders develop people for the future.

Leadership Styles at a glance

The research indicates that leaders who get the best results don’t rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week.