MY Insight
Where do we go from here?
Martínez Abascal, Eduardo
There’s no question about it: If we look at the size of the rescue packages and the diversity of financial institutions affected during the past year, we have just witnessed the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And the epicenter of the crisis is located in the United States and the United Kingdom, the two economies that were once considered the pillars of the global financial system. Analyzing the causes of the problems, we may extract some lessons for the future.
Dilemmas: problems to solve or a source of long-term success?
Ward, John L.
Life is full of challenging dilemmas. Executives face some classics: should we favor experimentation or efficiency? Individual accomplishment or team effort? Cost or quality? Are questions like these problems to solve, or paradoxes to resolve? To cope with the inevitable dilemmas that top managers face requires the following competencies.
What’s wrong with CEOs today? The nature of leadership is changing.
Canals Margalef, Jordi
A recent survey reported in the Financial Times highlights that the reputation of CEOs in the United States is at its lowest level ever. Moreover, CEO turnover in public companies has increased dramatically over the past few years. High-profile firings of top executives make headlines almost every day, with many of the world’s largest banks getting rid of their CEOs in recent months. What was wrong with those CEOs? What is wrong with CEOs today? Why are senior business leaders losing their heads so often? Is the nature of leadership changing?
Time to revisit basic values that we often fail to practice.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey
We hear talk these days about trade-offs and compromises, about “making do.” Yet here is one group of executives who are clearly committed to doing well by their employees, their customers, the communities in which they live – as well as their shareholders. The secret of their success is not so secret. Their management practices are neither novel nor complicated. There’s no fabulous new technology or arcane business strategy. Simply good management based on humanistic values – basic values we all know, yet frequently fail to practice.