In recent years, news outlets have stressed the importance of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. How important are these skills? 75% of the fastest-growing occupations require STEM skills. U.S. employment in STEM fields has gone up more than 30% since 2000. This information is great to hear if you are a STEM advocate or [...]
As a senior leader, what do you do if a new business line in your organization is not performing up to expectations? How do you avoid shutting it down prematurely or continuing to bet on a losing horse? These are valid questions you may have asked yourself on the way to work, because your responsibilities [...]
If you are reading this on your computer or mobile device, chances are you and your colleagues will soon be discussing a change needed in your organization. Not only that, you may be asked to help successfully implement this change. Unless you are an expert, change management is difficult to get your arms around. If [...]
It’s the beginning of a new year which brings interest in what the market will look like for the next 12 months, especially from a merger and acquisition (M&A) standpoint. What do you anticipate? How ready is your organization if an M&A is on the horizon? When key market stakeholders were recently asked, most expected [...]
“Our company is in growth mode, and we are feeling ‘pains’ due to how we have handled growth to date. We are trying to prevent the growing pains from getting worse but are having limited success.” Does this sound familiar? The amount of growing pains experienced by a company can be impacted by a variety [...]
"Let's continue this discussion at next week's meeting, because we need to take another look at these issues to get everyone's commitment." As soon as Bill heard the vice president make this statement, his blood pressure shot up 20 points, because this would be the third time that a decision has been kicked down [...]
How can we help make employee engagement a natural part of our organization? If your company has recently completed an engagement survey, this is likely to be a question you hear more than once. There are a number of ways that organizations can help make this happen. The ones that I encounter most often are [...]
If you are an executive moving into a new role or implementing a change in your organization (e.g., a company, a division, etc.), you may be thinking about designing or redesigning your organization. Although it is natural to want to modify your organization in such a way, this should be done with some clarity and [...]
Have we clearly identified our organization’s competitive advantage? Are we creating a blue ocean as the strategic market space for our company? How does this relate to our human capital? How helpful is a balanced scorecard? Some colleagues may ask these types of questions as you do strategic planning at your organization (especially if these [...]
Who should be on the executive team, and how can we help ensure that the team operates in an effective manner? These are frequent questions that I encounter when working with organizations, and they are important questions given that teams fail about 60% of the time according to the research of Eunice Parisi-Carew. Many organizations [...]