SHARP ATTIRE and a purposeful stride. The left-hand turn on the plane away from the cheap seats. Skipping the in-flight film to refine a presentation. Over the past two pandemic years these obvious giveaways of the globetrotting executive became a rare sight. According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), a trade body, worldwide spending…
With more and more people quitting, leaders need to find new ways to boost retention. One under-recognized way to keep employees on board is to give them the flexibility and resources they need to pursue their out-of-work passions. Drawing on their research, the authors offer practical strategies for creating “passion opportunities” so that you can attract…
Digitisation of everything, cloud computing and hybrid working is fuelling a boom in Indian IT consultingTWO DECADES ago India’s information-technology (IT) firms were the stars of the rising country’s corporate firmament. The industry’s three giants, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro, became household names at home and familiar to chief executives of big businesses…
“SNATCH GROCERIES first, then get a covid test” has quickly become an anthem for the lockdown that started suddenly in Shanghai in the early hours of March 28th. Local hip-hop artists CATI2, P.J. and Keyso describe scenes of panic buying—qiang cai, or snatching groceries—and the threat of being locked out of one’s home amid a…
The war in Ukraine is pushing up costs just as shoppers become fed up with inflationTHE MARKET for packaged foods is a competitive one, where price rises by one firm risk pushing shoppers into the arms of rivals. Companies in the industry deal with soaring costs by hedging against spikes in commodity markets using forward…
“WHEN YOU gaze into TikTok, TikTok gazes into you,” wrote Eugene Wei, a tech blogger, in 2020, explaining the almost clairvoyant nature of TikTok. What the algorithm sees as it gazes into your columnist, a neophyte user, is anyone’s guess: a random feed delivers tips on how to design a ball gown, someone barking at…
The written word will flourish in the post-pandemic workplaceTHE PANDEMIC has given a big shove to all forms of digital communication. Video-conferencing platforms have become verbs. Venture capitalists make their bets after watching virtual pitches. Products like Loom and mmhmm help workers send pre-recorded video messages to their colleagues. More than a third of Slack…
March 29, 2022 As the acclaimed documentarian releases a new two-part PBS series about Ben Franklin, he describes how the U.S. founding father transformed himself from teen runaway to newspaperman, then inventor, then political elder. He explains what current leaders can learn from how Franklin approached business, scientific discovery, and his fellow nation-builders. Ken Burns,…
As teams have scrambled to adapt to new conditions in the wake of the pandemic, many have devised exciting and highly productive new ways of relating to each other and getting their work done. The best teams transformed their ways of working through what we call “radical adaptability.” These are teams that went beyond mere…
When faced with a new career opportunity that requires new skills, we often question our competence. Job transitions come with untrodden ground. Our fear of failure makes us hesitate to embrace the opportunity. There are four demons that hold successful professionals back when facing their next big career step that you must overcome to eliminate…