strategydriven

Self assessments can be a powerful tool for determining the unknown drivers of performance; their effectiveness derived from the diverse knowledge and experience of the multidiscipline team and the vast amounts of information from causal evaluations, work performance observations, executive, manager, employee, and customer interviews, financial reports, independent analyst reports, performance measures, and condition reports leveraged to perform these assessments. So rich and robust are these assessments that their credibility often goes unchallenged, yet a single flaw in the self assessment's initial execution can make this power tool for continuous improvement an instrument of disaster.

Major changes in any established regulation cause great uncertainty and the recent revisions made to the financial industry's governance are no exception. Indeed, the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell estimates that 243 new rules will be developed by 11 different government agencies as a part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.1 What is misleading, however, is the notion that the act focuses only on the financial services industry. In reality, this `financial reform' represents a Washington power grab that extends far beyond the confines of Wall Street and will undoubtedly affect almost all Americans.

Explores the rationality of decisions and their impact on change management.

The Monsanto experience holds an important lesson: If corporate sustainability strategies are narrowly construed, they will fall seriously short. It is not enough to develop revolutionary technology with the potential to leapfrog currently unsustainable methods. Antiglobalization demonstrators have made it apparent that if corporate expansion is seen to endanger local autonomy, it will encounter vigorous resistance. Multinationals seeking new growth strategies to satisfy shareholders increasingly hear concerns from many quarters about consumer monoculture, labor rights, and cultural hegemony. As long as multinational corporations persist in being outsiders--alien to both the cultures and the ecosystems within which they do business--it will be difficult for them to realize their full commercial, let alone social, potential.

It started with the silver screen, over a century ago. And while the advent of TV, personal computers and mobile devices as the second, third and fourth major screen technologies have clearly changed life as we know it, Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) technology - the "fifth screen", as it's known - has created amazingly influential opportunities of its own.

Common sense suggests that individuals and organizations would only seek to borrow or be lent money that they could with reasonable assurance repay. In the wake of the housing market crash of 2008, we learned that financial institutions frequently provided mortgage loans to those they knew could not afford to repay them. Common sense certainly did not prevail and, in this case, contributed to the devastating economic conditions we now face.

This article takes the contrarian's view that business - more than either government or civil society - is uniquely equipped at this point in history to lead us toward a sustainable world in the years ahead.

All workplace environments have distractions that divert employees' attention and diminish productivity. Some of these distractions are simply a part of the human condition, our physical, intellectual, and social needs for diversionary activity. Others, however, are induced by workplace structures, policies, and employees (executives, managers, supervisors, and individual contributors). Of these, one of the most harmful yet preventable are the disrespectful and demeaning acts committed against employees.