Category Archives: Global Management

Successful Decision-Making in a Confused World

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Technology was supposed to solve all our problems, help us to become more efficient, and save us time and energy in our daily lives. But it would seem that the exact opposite has happened. We now have more devices then we know what to do with; ringing, beeping and chirping at us 24/7 with calls, email, texts and various social media connections. It has become almost impossible to unplug and just think!

Paul Laudicina is seeking to provide an answer to this overload of information with his latest book Beating the Global Odds. Laudicina offers not only a provocative look at the major challenges of our time, but also the very real opportunities we have to convert headwinds into advantageous tailwinds.

Laudicina describes the problem this way: “A technology-driven and connected world has exponentially increased our inputs and choices. At the same time, there is a lack of a fundamental, shared sense of purpose on which people and organizations can build things that last – inspiring and sparking actions that will yield long-term benefits both within and across borders.”

If you are trying to make sense of the present and plan for the future for your organization, then please join us on April 18th, when Paul will discuss this issue and his solution with our senior editor Andrew Clancy, in our webinar titled Successful Decision-Making in a Confused World. You’ll have the opportunity to pose questions for Paul as well.

The Importance of Legal Literacy to Your Business

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“In a monumental verdict, a jury recently awarded Apple $1.05 billion dollars in damages, determining that Samsung copied the technology used on the iPhone and iPad. Christian Louboutin did not make out as well in its case against Yves St. Laurent. Despite having applied for a trademark for their brand-defining red-soled shoes, the court found that Louboutin could not impede the creativity of other designers and granted Yves St. Laurent the right to copy the well-known fashion statement. From smart phones to high heels, song lyrics to Spider-Man, possessing copyrights, patents and trademarks is the first line of self-defense, as well as highly lucrative.” Alexandre Montagu

Does your company have trademarked or copyrighted products, or are you using designs or technologies that may overlap those of other companies? Then intellectual property is a topic that you ignore at your own risk.

In Montagu’s new book, Intellectual Property, he looks at the dangers and opportunities inherent in this complex arena. Among the major areas that he investigates are:

  • Protecting your brand online – this includes domain name strategy, cybersquatting, fraud and impersonation online.
  • Online copyright infringement – this includes areas like piracy, peer-to-peer sharing and policing piracy online.
  • Indentifying, protecting and monetizing your intellectual property, especially in the industries of fashion, art, music and entertainment.
  • The next step in national security – this involves the well-publicized topic of cyber warfare and cyber attacks on corporations.

In our next Soundview Live webinar, Money and Power in a New Era, Alexandre Montagu will explore the pitfalls of being caught unaware of Intellectual Property law. “Whether it’s the trade secrets of a hedge fund’s algorithms, the copyrights or patents underlying the smart phone, the trademarks that protect well-known brands, intellectual property bastes the modern economy,” he says. Through fascinating anecdotes and compelling court cases, Montagu brings home just how important legal literacy can be for your business.

Special Week of Webinars

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Next week is special at Soundview, as we have three guest speakers joining us for Soundview Live throughout the week. Whether you’re interested in increasing your productivity, understanding the shift in our global economy, or learning how to lead through change, we’ve got you covered. Check out the great lineup of guest authors below.

Extreme Productivity with Bob Pozen

Bob Pozen will be sharing concepts from his book by the same name, to reveal his secrets to workplace productivity and high performance. The antidote to a calendar full of boring meetings and a backlog of emails, this event will show you how you can achieve your goals by making a critical shift in mindset: from hours worked to results produced.

How to Lead Your Business through the Global Tilt with Ram Charan

We are fortunate to have Dr. Charan back with us to discuss the shifting global economy. Dr. Charan has spent more time than anyone else on the ground observing and analyzing what he calls the “Global Tilt.” In this webinar he will give you the tools to detect trends that cut across not just industries but also countries, rethink the economic and business principles you rely on, and adapt to the speed of innovation and unprecedented needs of the new global economy.

Becoming a Master of Change with Rodger Dean Duncan

You’ve no doubt heard the old expression “the only constant is change.” The trouble is that for most of us, change is stressful, even scary. But change doesn’t have to be painful, or even unpleasant. It can be invigorating, inspiring, a chance to gather people around an energizing mission. In this webinar Rodger Dean Duncan will take us beyond theory to provide a clear road-map to successful change. Duncan will describe what he calls “The Four T’s,” four simple strategies that provide the foundation for handling change. Then, he’ll offer a clear, seven-step system for managing it. 

Consider this week a mini-conference for you and your colleagues. Take your lunch hour (at least on the east coast) for three days and learn from these knowledgeable business leaders. Or you can of course sign up for just one or two events.

To learn more about each event and speaker, just click through on the links provided above. As always these webinars are free for all Soundview subscribers. Non-subscribers pay just $69 per event and you can fill the room with colleagues.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can subscribe to Soundview’s Online Edition today for just $99, and get all three of these events, plus many more throughout the year, FREE. Our goal is to connect you with the business thoughts leaders that can make a real difference in your business and career.

Inside the World’s Best Business Decisions

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THE GREATEST BUSINESS DECISIONS OF ALL TIME
How Apple, Ford, IBM, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices That Changed the Course of Business

Given the thousands of business decisions made every day by company executives and business owners around the world, selecting the 18 greatest business decisions of all time is no small feat. In The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time, nine Fortune magazine editors have compiled such a list, including modern and historic decisions from companies around the globe. Verne Harnish, the Fortune magazine contributor who launched the idea of the book and whose succinct summaries precede the case study on every decision, explains: “In the end, the 18 management decisions that made our final list stood out from others because they were counterintuitive — they went against the grain of popular practice.” For example, Harnish continues, “What executive in his right mind would give his employees time to daydream — but that’s exactly what 3M CEO William McKnight did in 1948.”

New Takes on Familiar Tales

Many business book readers will be familiar with McKnight’s decision to give employees a certain percentage of free time to work on the project of their own choosing. Other familiar stories include Johnson & Johnson’s decision in 1982 to take action in the wake of the Tylenol poisonings that caused the deaths of seven people in the Chicago area; Jack Welch’s revitalization of GE’s corporate university at Crotonville, NY; and Nordstrom’s focus on boundaryless customer service.

In the knowledgeable hands of the Fortune editors, the short chapters of even these well-known cases make for interesting reading, thanks to unexpected details. For example, Geoff Colvin, the Fortune senior editor-at-large who writes the 3M chapter, debunks the idea that the Post-it note came entirely from the company’s free-time endeavor. It was 3M’s culture that was truly responsible for one of its most famous products.

Beating the Giants

Some of the most inspirational examples are in the book’s less-familiar stories. How the company that invented liquid soap was able to fend off the behemoths of the industry is a noteworthy anecdote. The brainchild of Robert Taylor, the CEO of a small Minnesota company called Minnetonka Corp., liquid soap was the kind of small-enterprise innovation that is usually immediately copied by the corporate giants on the block. And, indeed, when Taylor’s liquid soap started flying off the shelves, Unilever, Colgate and Procter & Gamble started testing their own versions. Taylor, however, devised a little-known strategy to keep control of the market: He found a way to block his giant competitors from accessing the plastic pumps used in the liquid soap bottles. At the time, only one company made the pumps. Taylor met with the CEO of the company and took the financial risk of ordering 100 million pumps, effectively ensuring a monopoly of the pumps for a full year. The strategy, which had never been attempted by such a small company, worked. By the time his competitors had access to the pumps, Taylor’s Softsoap brand was well established.

The 18 great management decisions in this book are not ranked in any particular order. They stand as inspirational examples of the power of bucking conventional wisdom and making bold and innovative decisions.

The Art of Winning in an Age of Uncertainty

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“Adaptability is the key human trait. The ability to adapt faster and smarter than the situation is what makes the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.” Max McKeown, Adaptability

As I consider the topic of adaptability, the journey of Soundview over the years comes to mind. We began as a print-only product back in 1978, delivering book summaries through the mail. Over the years we began producing audio summaries on tape, then on CD, and eventually added digital summaries available online. This then led us to drop the physical product for a totally online version, which allowed us to add live webinars and video interviews as well. This adaptation was in part for our survival, but it also gave us the ability to expand the product and to reach into the corporate training realm.

McKeown describes the 3 steps that must be taken to adapt:

  1. Recognize the need for adaptation – if no one recognizes a need or opportunity to adapt, there can be no deliberate attempt to adapt.
  2. Understand the adaptation required – recognizing the need for adaptation is a good start but many recognize problems without knowing what to do about them.
  3. Do what is necessary to adapt – it’s entirely possible to know that you should be making changes without doing anything to change.

The outcomes of adaptation, or the lack of adaptation, brings with it one of four possible results:

  1. Collapsing – the group ceases to function.
  2. Surviving – this is better than collapsing but the situation is still not desirable.
  3. Thriving – the rewards and benefits of their daily efforts are worthwhile and desirable.
  4. Transcending – this allows the escape from the constraints of the existing situation and to rise above it.

Certainly, moving to an online product allowed Soundview to escape the constraints of printing and the post office, but it also caused us to remake ourselves into a much more agile company. Adaptability is an absolute necessity in the age in which we live.

Does your company or organization need to be more flexible, to have the ability to adapt as needed? Then why don’t you join us on February 5th to hear Max McKeown explain his rules of adaptability, and to give real-world examples from business, government, military and sports to bring those rules to life. This Soundview Live webinar is The 17 Powerful Rules of Adaptability and McKeown will be taking your questions throughout the event.