2024

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6 Ways to Bring Strategy into Your Work Every Day

Harvard Business Review

Business leaders are expected to be strategic, and while organizational obstacles can prevent you from translating intent into strategic actions, so can your personal limitations and practices. It doesn’t have to be this way. Even when it feels like the odds are stacked against you, you have more choices than you may realize. Small decisions about where to focus and what to do throughout your day may feel inconsequential, but their impacts accumulate.

Strategy 141
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The great miscalculation–and exit–of multinationals in Africa… again

Christensen Institute

Deja vu. In 2015, many multinational companies exited Africa. Nestle cut staff across 21 countries and Barclays, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, Eveready, and SABMiller retreated from different African markets they once believed had promise. The allure of Africa, particularly the widely referenced Africa rising narrative, was fading. The reasons the multinationals cited were all too familiar: failing or inexistent infrastructure, smaller than expected consumer market, struggling institutions, and corruption

Report 143
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Four Hidden Secrets of Innovation

Innovation Excellence

GUEST POST from Greg Satell Every enterprise needs to innovate. It doesn’t matter whether you are a profit-seeking business, a nonprofit organization or a government entity, the simple truth is that every business model fails eventually, because things change over time. We have to manage not for stability, but for disruption or face irrelevance.

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Many Employees Fear Being Replaced by AI — Here's How to Integrate It Into Your Business Without Scaring Them.

Entrepreneur - Innovation

There's no need to convince employees of the merits of artificial intelligence — just show them they are about to become more relevant, not less.

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The AI Superhero Approach to Product Management

Speaker: Conrado Morlan

In this engaging and witty talk, we’ll explore how artificial intelligence can transform the daily tasks of product managers into streamlined, efficient processes. Using the lens of a superhero narrative, we’ll uncover how AI can be the ultimate sidekick, aiding in decision-making, enhancing productivity, and boosting innovation. Attendees will leave with practical tools and actionable insights, motivated to embrace AI and leverage its potential in their work. 🦸 🏢 Key objectives:

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The Limits of GenAI Educators

Harvard Business Review

While generative AI tools have been heralded as the future of education, more than 40 years of academic research suggests that it could also harm learning in realms from online tutoring to employee training for three reasons. First, the best student-teacher relationships are empathetic ones but it is biologically impossible for humans and AI to develop mutual empathy.

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How to Improve Women’s Advancement Programs

Harvard Business Review

Most corporate women’s advancement programs center on teaching women a predefined slate of skills purported to give them more control over their careers. But by taking this approach, companies may be unintentionally communicating a culture of conformity by asking women to change who they are to succeed. This leaves many women, especially senior women, feeling stuck, because strong leaders need to have the ability to set expectations, not just fulfill them.

How To 133

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Creating Stability Is Just as Important as Managing Change

Harvard Business Review

When we think about change at work today, we tend to assume its inevitability and focus our attention on how to manage it — what methods and processes and technology and communication we need to put in place to have it move ahead more smoothly. Of course, some change is necessary, and some is inevitable. But not all of it. What the scientific literature on predictability, agency, belonging, place, and meaning suggests is that before we think about managing change, we should consider the conditio

Change 138
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How to Integrate Cloud, Data, and AI Technologies — and Make Your Company More Adaptable

Harvard Business Review

Building a strong, flexible “digital core” that integrates cloud, data, and AI technologies to serve as an interconnected foundation for your company is the key to future growth. It is your means of supporting the current business drive toward efficiency and effectiveness, while remaining flexible enough to respond to the new needs of the organization and quickly adopt and scale the latest technology innovations.

Data 134
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The Most Strategic Leaders Excel in 4 Disciplines

Harvard Business Review

Strategic fitness is a leader’s ability to learn from and adapt to their environment to set direction and create a competitive advantage. A study of 77 C-suite executives over four years found that strategically fit leaders excel in four disciplines : 1) Strategic fitness, or setting clear direction and calibrating when necessary; 2) Leadership fitness, or refining their style to meet the moment; 3) Organizational fitness, or investing in thinking about the future state of the business; and 4) C

Exercises 142
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All Business Strategies Fall into 4 Categories

Harvard Business Review

The problem with strategy frameworks is that although they can help you determine whether an opportunity is attractive or whether a given strategy is likely to work, they generally don’t help you in the task of identifying the opportunity or crafting the strategy in the first place. This article introduces a framework, built on an in-depth analysis of the creativity literature, that aims to fill that gap by providing a systematic approach to identifying potential strategies.

Strategy 144
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Provide Real Value in Your Applications with Data and Analytics

The complexity of financial data, the need for real-time insight, and the demand for user-friendly visualizations can seem daunting when it comes to analytics - but there is an easier way. With Logi Symphony, we aim to turn these challenges into opportunities. Our platform empowers you to seamlessly integrate advanced data analytics, generative AI, data visualization, and pixel-perfect reporting into your applications, transforming raw data into actionable insights.

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How Starbucks Devalued Its Own Brand

Harvard Business Review

Starbucks is struggling. It has strayed from its successful strategy of offering customers exceptional experiences and, in the process, has commoditized itself. This article analyzes where it went wrong and offers ideas for how the company can turn itself around. It holds lessons for other companies that compete by providing customers distinctive experiences.

Strategy 138
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How to Get Your Team to Actually Speak Up

Harvard Business Review

There is a common leadership misconception that merely encouraging team members to voice their opinions will foster an environment of openness. But people won’t speak up unless they feel safe doing so. As a leader, this means you have to address the underlying reasons for employee reticence, including the individual and systemic barriers to speaking up.

How To 141
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How AI Can Make Make Us Better Leaders

Harvard Business Review

Humans are good at inventing tools, but not as good at adapting to the change these tools can cause. While there has been much focus on the technical impacts and potential dark side of AI, the authors’ research has shown that AI can enhance and empower leadership, actually helping make leaders more human. To do this, we need to invest just as much in the development of our human potential as we do in harnessing the power of AI.

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Learning to Delegate as a First-Time Manager

Harvard Business Review

Learning how to delegate well is a skill every first-time manager needs to learn from the very start. Many people are promoted into management for doing their previous job well. But once you’re promoted into a leadership role, you must accept that you can’t do everything on your own — nor should you. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the more senior you become in an organization, the less you’ll be involved in doing the day-to-day work.

Learning 140
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How to Easily Navigate Crypto Accounting in the Web3 Era

Speaker: Aaron Jacob, VP of Accounting Solutions & Reagan Cook, GTM Lead

Are you struggling to navigate the complexities and challenges that come with crypto accounting? 🤔 This new webinar will cover everything businesses need to know to get started with crypto accounting after incorporating crypto into their business models! Industry experts Aaron Jacob and Reagan Cook of TaxBit will thoroughly explore the prevalent operational hurdles encountered by accounting teams when interacting with crypto on the books, and detail how software solutions can effectively

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3 Steps to Cultivate an Innovator’s Mindset

Harvard Business Review

If you want to move up the corporate ladder, you need to do more than meet deadlines and produce strong results. Employees who quickly move up often have an innovator’s mindset. These people ultimately position themselves as valuable assets by questioning assumptions and pushing their organizations to stay competitive. By consistently bringing fresh ideas to the table and demonstrating a proactive approach to problem-solving, they naturally attract the attention of higher-ups.

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The Risks of Botshit

Harvard Business Review

Botshit — made-up, inaccurate, and untruthful chatbot content that humans uncritically use for tasks — can pose major risks to your business in the form of reputational damage, incorrect decisions, legal liability, economic losses, and even human safety. Yet, it’s unlikely that chatbots are going away. How can you manage these risks while taking advantage of the benefits of promising new tools?

Tools 129
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The CEO’s Journey Is a 3-Act Play

Harvard Business Review

Instead of treating a leadership role as an unending sprint, CEOs should approach their tenure as a series of three phases. Act one requires a leader to establish legitimacy, build a top team, and begin to communicate and implement a change agenda. Act two requires revisiting many of the choices made during the earlier phase, correcting mistakes, and reenergizing the organization.

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Gen AI is Coming for Remote Workers First

Harvard Business Review

Automation has historically impacted blue-collar jobs first, whereas white-collar jobs benefited. The wave of remote work brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic further empowered white-collar workers with more autonomy through remote work. However, generative AI is changing this narrative. Remote workers are now more susceptible to automation due to their tasks being digital and thus more easily automated, but also indicates large potential productivity benefits.

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Scan to Success: How to Leverage QR Codes for Offline and Online Marketing Power

Speaker: Corey Daugherty, Head of Business Development at Flowcode & Georgette Malitsis, Senior Customer Success Manager, Enterprise at Flowcode

Let's explore the transformative power of QR codes in bridging offline and online marketing worlds. 📲 This new webinar featuring Corey Daugherty and Georgette Malitsis of Flowcode will dive into how innovative QR technology not only enhances traditional marketing strategies, but also drives meaningful customer engagement and analytics. Register today to gain practical knowledge on using QR codes to increase conversion rates, optimize customer journeys, and ultimately unlock a new realm o

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How to Present to an Audience That Knows More Than You

Harvard Business Review

What happens when you have to give a presentation to an audience that might have some professionals who have more expertise on the topic than you do? While it can be intimidating, it can also be an opportunity to leverage their deep and diverse expertise in service of the group’s learning. And it’s an opportunity to exercise some intellectual humility, which includes having respect for other viewpoints, not being intellectually overconfident, separating your ego from your intellect, and being wi

How To 144
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When Asking Too Many Questions Undermines Your Leadership

Harvard Business Review

Although it’s widely accepted that good leaders are good learners, a learning mentality can also have a darker side. If not carefully managed, it might lead to a perception of decreased effectiveness, less expertise, and lower efficiency. Your learning mentality should be the catalyst for your personal growth and development — not a reason for others to question your leadership.

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3 Ways to Clearly Communicate Your Company’s Strategy

Harvard Business Review

For all the communication around strategy, we know that leaders at many companies don’t provide the necessary context for employees to understand what the words and sentences in a strategy statement actually mean. What can leaders do to help employees understand enough context to understand a strategy? In this article, the authors offer three recommendations: 1) Present the alternatives considered and explain why they were not adopted. 2) Explain how each choice is linked to the organization’s p

Strategy 141
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Making the Time to Build Your Side Hustle

Harvard Business Review

Fifty percent of Gen Zs want to ditch the corporate world to become their own boss. However, this can be challenging when you lack the funds and flexibility to leave your day job. As a result, many ambitious young people begin by balancing full-time work with a side hustle — but managing both commitments can be challenging. You might feel drained after work or find it difficult to be consistent.

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Don’t Get Left Behind: Leveraging Modern Product Management Across the Organization

Speaker: Kat Conner

The challenge of delivering the right product at the right time while aligning with strategic objectives is more pressing than ever. Product management is evolving and gaining greater recognition as the means to creating this connection. Join our upcoming webinar and learn how to streamline your product development processes, infuse product thinking across the organization, and bridge the gap between vision and delivery.

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Does Your Boss Practice Toxic Positivity?

Harvard Business Review

Being happy and positive at work can be a win-win for employees and organizations. But what happens when your boss practices toxic positivity? No matter how bad or stressful the situation is or how difficult the circumstances, they convince themselves that simply acting happy or thinking positively will change the outcome — then spread this toxic positivity to their teams.

Change 140
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You Need New Skills to Make a Career Pivot. Here’s How to Find the Time to Build Them.

Harvard Business Review

With any significant change in your career comes the need for new skills. But that’s even more true when you want a radical career change. In these situations, it’s going to take more than listening to a few webinars to build the knowledge you need get to where you want to go. You must set aside a significant amount of time for self-directed learning, formal training, or even a second job to gain the skills for the big leap.

How To 141
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Is Your Mindset About Generative AI Limiting Your Professional Growth?

Harvard Business Review

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has garnered immense publicity over the past few months. Some believe it’s a passing fad or a threat to human creativity. For young professionals, it’s the source of a unique dilemma: Do you “buy into the hype” of AI and use it as a guidepost for your professional development and ambitions? Or do you stick to the beaten path, focusing on building more traditional skills and pursuing more conventional trajectories?

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How to Vet Information Before Making a Decision

Harvard Business Review

The daily decisions modern leaders face are increasingly complex. But executives have a tool to combat these challenges – information. At the click of a mouse or the press of a thumb, they can call up cutting edge research on virtually any topic. With so much information available, how do we know what to trust? What executives need is a simple taxonomy of misinformation so they know what to look out for.

How To 136
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Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to Production

Speaker: Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks & Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

Executive leaders and board members are pushing their teams to adopt Generative AI to gain a competitive edge, save money, and otherwise take advantage of the promise of this new era of artificial intelligence. There's no question that it is challenging to figure out where to focus and how to advance when it’s a new field that is evolving everyday. 💡 This new webinar featuring Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, will explore a practical framework to transform Generative AI pr

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The New Rules of Marketing Across Channels

Harvard Business Review

The Internet and AI tools are transforming marketing communications within a complex, interactive landscape called the echoverse. While marketing has evolved since the proliferation of the Internet, in the echoverse, a diverse network of human and nonhuman actors — consumers, brands, AI agents, and more — continuously interact, influence, and reshape messages across digital platforms.

Marketing 134
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How to Gracefully Decline a Networking Request

Harvard Business Review

When you’re new to the workforce, you may feel pressure to engage every possible connection. However, continuously giving your time, energy, and focus to the wrong people can add up and take away from more meaningful work. There are times when it’s to your benefit to respectfully decline a networking invitation. Here are a few red flags to look out for when deciding whether to accept a networking request: the person is primarily interested in selling you a product or service rather than building

How To 125
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When a Team Member Speaks Up — and It Doesn’t Go Well

Harvard Business Review

Speaking up — and being heard — in organizations is critical, but failed attempts to speak up happen often at work and can lead people to silence themselves and others in the long run. Instead, leaders and team members should frame such situations as opportunities to learn. But this isn’t easy; it can be difficult to recognize such moments as learning opportunities; it can be difficult to move beyond counterproductive emotions like shame and blame,;and we tend to be too busy and focused on the s

Learning 129
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The 6 Disciplines Companies Need to Get the Most Out of Gen AI

Harvard Business Review

Some observers are beginning to question whether gen AI will produce enough value to exceed its costs. It can, but extracting economic value from gen AI requires several different types of disciplined capabilities. Unfortunately, most companies lack these. The good news is they can develop them. Specifically, companies should invest in behavioral change, controlled experimentation, measurement of business value, data management, human capital development, and systems thinking.

Company 130
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How to Optimize Call Monitoring: Automate QA and Elevate Customer Experience

Speaker: Laura Noonan, Chief Revenue Officer at CallFinder + Angie Kronlage, Director of Program Success at Working Solutions + April Wiita, Vice President of Program Success at Working Solutions

Are you still manually reviewing calls? 🤔 It's time for a change! The traditional method of manual call monitoring is no longer cutting it in today's fast-paced call center environment. Industry experts Angie Kronlage and April Wiita from Working Solutions are here to explore the power of innovative automation to revolutionize outdated call review processes!