Capitalism at the Crossroads – Mapping the Terrain

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From Obligation to Opportunity

Having grown up in western New York in the 1950s and ’60s, I have memories of family vacations spent at destinations like Niagara Falls. Although the Falls themselves were indeed magnificent, equally memorable for a 10-year-old was the soot from nearby factories that accumulated on the porch furniture, requiring that we cleaned the furniture daily, lest we ruin our clothes. The accompanying stench was also something to experience. I still remember asking why, in a place of such natural beauty and splendor, did it have to be so polluted? The answer, accepted wisdom in those days, was that this was “the smell of money.” If we were going to have economic prosperity, then we would have to put up with some minor inconveniences, such as soot, stench, rivers that catch fire, and mountains of waste. It was the cost of progress. I remember being singularly unsatisfied by this response.

Fast-forward to 1974. As a freshly minted college graduate headed to Yale for graduate work in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, I was convinced that corporations were the “enemy” and that the only way to deal effectively with environmental problems was to “make them pay” through regulation—to internalize their externalities, in the jargon of economics. This was probably a correct perception at that point in history: Large corporations, by and large, had been unresponsive to environmental issues, and it appeared that the only way to deal with the problem was to force them to clean up the messes they were making. The Environmental Protection Agency and scores of other regulatory agencies were created precisely for this purpose. A mountain of command-and-control regulation was passed during the decade of the 1970s, aimed at forcing companies to mitigate their negative impacts.

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About the Author

Stuart L. Hart, author of Capitalism at the Crossroads, is the Samuel C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management. Professor Hart is one of the world’s top authorities on the implications of sustainable development and environmentalism for business strategy. He has published over 50 papers and authored or edited five books. His article “Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World” won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in the Harvard Business Review for 1997 and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. To read Stuart’s complete biography, click here.

Is Strategic Planning Still Relevant?

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In March 2010, Fast Company ran a piece entitled “Strategic Planning is Dead, Long Live Strategy Execution,” a few weeks earlier the Wall Street Journal declared that “Strategic Plans Lose Favor.” So is strategic planning another victim of the economic tsunami that has washed over the world?

It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and declare that in today’s volatile and uncertain world strategic planning is irrelevant. Amidst all the talk of flexibility, agility, speed and responsiveness, strategic planning seems oddly out of place. After all how useful can a long-term view of future be when our predictive ability is so poor?

However, before we discard strategy lets back up, maybe the problem is not strategic planning itself but the way in which we apply the technique. As Michael Porter author of numerous books that are essentials in the library of any strategic planner commented: “Strategy is a word that gets used in so many ways with so many meanings that it can end up being meaningless.”

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About the Author

David Axson, author of The Management Mythbuster, is President of the Sonax Group, a business advisory firm. He is a former head of corporate planning at Bank of America and was a co-founder of The Hackett Group. He is a sought-after speaker and writer on business strategy and management and is widely regarded as a thought leader in the industry. To read David’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 35 – An Interview with Robert Kolb, co-author of Corporate Boards

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 35 – An Interview with Robert Kolb, co-author of Corporate Boards explores the motivations, conflicts, limitations, roles, and ethics of corporate boards; answering the often asked question of why Boards and their members behave the way they do. During our discussion, Robert Kolb, co-author of Corporate Boards: Managers of Risk, Sources of Risk and Professor of Finance and holder of the Frank W. Considine Chair of Applied Ethics at Loyola University Chicago, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the Board of Directors’ role in managing upside risk
  • how companies deal with the risk of diminished Board independence that occurs when the CEO is also the Chairman of the Board
  • what time-inconsistent misconduct is and why it occurs
  • why compensation plans may encourage executives to engage in exceedingly risky merger and acquisition deals and the actions Boards take to mitigate this risk
  • the Board’s role in establishing executive compensation, including those mechanisms that result in unduly rewarding failure
  • who the Board of Directors should serve… just shareholders or a broader group of stakeholders that includes shareholders, employees, the environment, and society

Additional Information

Robert’s book, Corporate Boards, can be purchased by clicking here.

About the Author

Robert Kolb, co-author of Corporate Boards, holds PhDs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in philosophy and finance and has taught at the University of Florida, Emory University, the University of Miami, the University of Colorado, and Loyola University Chicago, where he currently serves as Professor of Finance and holds the Frank W. Considine Chair of Applied Ethics. Robert is the author or co-author of more than 50 research articles and 25 finance texts on topics, including financial derivatives, investments, corporate finance, and financial institutions. Robert recently edited the Encyclopedia of Business, Society, and Ethics. He also founded Kolb Publishing, Inc., which published finance and economics university texts and was acquired by Blackwell Publishing, now part of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. To read Robert’s complete biography, click here.

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StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 32 – An Interview with Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 32 – An Interview with Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How explores the transformation of the traditional, top-down approach to strategy planning and execution into a collaborative process proven to be significantly more effective. During our discussion, Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy and Chief Executive Officer of Rubicon Consulting, shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the definition of business strategy
  • why input from those lower in the organization is needed when formulating the organization’s strategy
  • why being the ‘Chief of Answers’ is harmful to the planning process and what can be done to avoid assuming this role
  • why it’s important for everyone within an organization to understand its strategy
  • the ‘First Principles of the New How‘ and why they are important to strategy development and execution

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Nilofer shares in The New How and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her websites, www.RubiconConsulting.com and www.The-New-How.com.   Nilofer’s book, The New How, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How, is Chief Executive Officer of Rubicon Consulting, a strategy and marketing consultancy designed specifically to serve the needs of technology companies. Nilofer has honed her unique collaborative approach to solving tough business problems while working with and for companies such as Adobe, Apple, Nokia, and HP. To read Nilofer’s complete biography, click here.

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StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 28 – An Interview with Ken Blanchard, author of Leading at a Higher Level

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles published on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 28 – An Interview with Ken Blanchard, author of Leading at a Higher Level examines how world-class leaders create a compelling vision; ensuring their employees know who the leader is, where they are going, and the values that will guide the journey. During our discussion, Ken Blanchard, author of Leading at a Higher Level, Revised and Expanded Edition: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations and Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the value of focusing the organization on the ‘Tripple Bottom Line’
  • the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of a high performing organization
  • what the High Performing Organization (HPO) Scores model is and how it can be used to identify organizational performance improvement opportunities
  • using Situational Leadership to foster improved individual and team performance
  • establishing and reinforcing individual accountability
  • what differentiates servant leadership from traditional leadership approaches and why this approach is so powerful
  • benefits of developing and communicating a leadership point of view

Additional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Ken shares in Leading at a Higher Level and this special edition podcast are the additional resources accessible from his website at www.KenBlanchard.com.   Ken’s book, Leading at a Higher Level, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Ken Blanchard, author of Leading at a Higher Level, is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, a global leader in workplace learning, employee productivity, leadership, and team effectiveness. Ken has had a profound impact on the practice of management around the world. His bestseller, The One Minute Manager, has been published in 27 different languages and sold 13 million copies. His 17 business bestsellers include Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service, High Five! The Magic of Working Together, and The Secret: What Great Leaders Know – And Do. To read Ken’s full biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:23 — 47.3MB)

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