Maifors Studio | Podcast

Part 1: How Simulation Can Accelerate Your Digital Transformation.

Around the mahogany tables of corporate boardrooms and the plywood workbenches of garage-based startups, one topic has threatened to monopolize business discussions for years: digital transformation.

Part 2: The New Elements of Digital Transformation

Since 2014, when our article “The Nine Elements of Digital Transformation” appeared in these pages, executive awareness of the powerful and ever-evolving ways in which digital technology can create competitive advantage has become pervasive. But acting on that awareness remains a challenging prospect.

Part 3: When Does It Make Sense to Have Mixed-Mode Meetings?

While organizations are preparing to return large numbers of workers to offices this fall, many senior leaders have questions about how to lead a reassembled workforce when not everyone is together. In a recent article, we put forward a principle to guide the reimagination of hybrid work post-pandemic: Take a virtual-first approach and bring people together physically only when it adds value to do so.

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Part 1: Five Creative Ways To Lead A Digital Transformation.

Expert commentary on global affairs for leaders everywhere

Various experiences with digital transformation (DX) projects, including the failures and success stories in organizations, have taught us one thing: digital transformation is about people and not about technology. This argument is now widely accepted as organizations have moved away from focusing on only the technology and off-the-shelf technological solutions to their needs.

Part 2: For digital transformation, ‘mindset matters most’.

Digital transformation has understandably accelerated massively since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Organisations in virtually every industry had to digitise some part of their business or operations in order to carry on throughout the restrictions.

Part 3: Companies Must Find the Courage to Back Up Statements on Climate Action.

The world’s largest companies are rapidly raising the bar on their commitments to tackle climate change. Dozens recently put net-zero goals in place to eliminate carbon from their operations and often their entire value chains as well. Hundreds have committed to using only renewable energy. More than 1,600 say they will cut greenhouse gas emissions at the pace scientists tell us is needed to avoid the worst climate outcomes (that is, they’re pledging a science-based target). And banks, long the laggards on climate action, are funneling trillions of dollars toward clean technologies while moving their investment portfolios away from fossil fuels.

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Part 1: Keeping up With Digital Transformation.

Whether or not you have seen The Office (US) (and know that Gabe is annoyed that Andy’s answers are correct because he dislikes him), you probably know that critical thinking questions are used to evaluate a candidate’s thinking process. In fact, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) The Future of Jobs Report 2020 states that critical thinking is among the top skills employers see as rising in prominence in the lead-up to 2025, along with analysis, problem-solving, and self-management skills.

Part 2: The 5 Fronts of Digital Transformation in the Middle Market.

The past 18 months have brought unprecedented challenges to businesses of all sizes, and the U. S. middle market was not immune.

Part 3: Digital Mindfulness: Being Digital Instead Of Doing Digital.

This saying, often misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi but actually penned by Arleen Lorrance in her book, The Love Project, encapsulates the difference between doing digital stuff and being a digital business.

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Part 1: 5 Reasons Your Employees Don’t Understand Your Company’s Vision.

Leadership teams often spend hours wordsmithing their business’ vision, mission, and strategy, only to hear employees complain, “We don’t have a north star. ” Executives are often surprised by this feedback of a lack of an aspirational vision and immediately spend more time trying to craft the perfect statement. This mistaken approach makes scant progress in clarifying their people’s perception of a clear path forward.

Part 2: Digital Mindfulness: Being Digital Instead Of Doing Digital.

This saying, often misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi but actually penned by Arleen Lorrance in her book, The Love Project, encapsulates the difference between doing digital stuff and being a digital business.

Part 3: Five Digital Transformation Hurdles In Financial Services And How To Avoid Them.

Seventy-three percent of digital transformations fail to produce sustained ROI. At least, that’s what a 2018 study found. It’s an astounding figure considering that at the same time, companies are investing more in upgrading their digital offerings. According to a survey of over 2,500 organizations, 97% of company heads said the pandemic accelerated their digital transformation. By 2025, it is estimated that digital transformation will be worth over $1 trillion, up from $470 billion in 2020.

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Part 1: The Future of Digital Work Depends On More Than Tech Skills.

Software skills may be essential for much of the work of the 21st century, but candidates also need softer skills to be reliable employees.

Part 2: Informal Leadership Comes at a Cost.

As an informal leader on my team, I’m often responsible not just for meeting my own goals, but also for managing and making decisions on team tasks. Even though these tasks are not mine to complete, I have to put in extra work to help my peers deal with them — and that can be really exhausting.

Part 3: Figuring Out Social Capital Is Critical for the Future of Hybrid Work.

The networks of employee relationships have been depleted during the pandemic, but companies can address this by focusing on three key areas in their return-to-work plans.

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Workforce Ecosystems. A New Strategic Approach to the Future of Work.

The latest MIT SMR-Deloitte survey on the future of the workforce finds that most managers consider employees and external workers — including contractors, service providers, app developers, and gig workers — to be part of their workforce. This calls for an integrated approach to workforce management and has led some executives to the idea of a workforce ecosystem. This report discusses the benefits and challenges associated with creating and managing a workforce ecosystem.

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Part 1: Strategy as a Way of Life.

Businesses must root strategy in moral purpose to thrive in a complex, rapidly changing world.

Part 2: Why So Many Data Science Projects Fail to Deliver

Organizations can gain more business value from advanced analytics by recognizing and overcoming five common obstacles.

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Part 1: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life.

In my research and coaching work over the past two decades, I have met many people who feel unfulfilled, overwhelmed, or stagnant because they are forsaking performance in one or more aspects of their lives. They aren’t bringing their leadership abilities to bear in all of life’s domains—work, home, community, and self (mind, body, and spirit). Of course, there will always be some tension among the different roles we play. But, contrary to common wisdom, there’s no reason to assume that it’s a zero-sum game. It makes more sense to pursue excellent performance as a leader in all four domains—achieving what I call “four-way wins”—not trading off one for another but finding mutual value among them.

Part 2: Choose a few, get started, and adapt.

Coming up with possibilities is an exercise in unbounded imagination. But when it comes time to take action, it’s not practical to try out more than three experiments at once. Typically, two turn out to be relatively successful and one goes haywire, so you will earn some small wins, and learn something useful about leadership, without biting off more than you can chew. Now the priority is to narrow the list to the three most promising candidates by reviewing which will:

Part 3: Preparing for Your First Day Back at the Office.

After the mass exodus from the land of cubicles in 2020, millions are returning to offices in 2021. For those who have relished their commute-free lifestyle, there’s a feeling of dread and a hope for negotiating a permanent remote (or at least hybrid) arrangement. For others who have found working from home challenging, there’s anticipation but still a twinge of uncertainty about how life will work when they’re back at work.

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Part 1: Struggling to Solve a Problem? Try Reframing It.

Experts in problem-solving emphasize the importance of deeply understanding the problem before implementing countermeasures. And many cite Charles Kettering’s maxim that “A problem well-framed is a problem half-solved.” But what, precisely, is a “well-framed” problem? I’ve written before about some of the obvious errors to avoid — couching a solution in the form of a problem, and relying on generalities instead of specifics.

Part 2: What Pandemic Parenting Can Teach Us About Leadership.

An executive-coaching client of Sanyin’s recently made an offhand comment that revealed something stunning about parenting over the past year. A busy executive with three kids and an equally busy working spouse, she quipped, “Who knew my kitchen would turn into my executive coach?” When Sanyin asked what she meant, she listed a litany of experiences from around her kitchen table: keeping her kids creatively engaged in their school activities while planning a meal and while, on the other side of the room, her laptop was logged into a virtual strategy session with her team. She reflected, “What I had to learn this past year to keep all my worlds integrated was a crucible I’d never wish on anyone. I know I had it better than many working parents. But I gained some new skills that will serve me well going forward.”

Part 3: Top Digital Banking Transformation Trends for 2021.

When the pandemic hit, most financial institutions entered a crisis mode of building digital capabilities that allowed consumers to the bank without branches. As we enter 2021, banks and credit unions must rethink the definition of 'digital banking,' with the application of data, analytics, technology, innovation, and people that will transform customer experiences.

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Part 1: Data: The Fuel That Drives Digital Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating effect on many companies globally. They had to rethink the way they work, how they acquire customers, and how they keep those customers satisfied. Enter: Digital Transformation - the strategy that enabled many of them to do this.

Part 2: How Humans and AI Are Working Together in 1,500 Companies.

Artificial intelligence is becoming good at many “human” jobs—diagnosing disease, translating languages, providing customer service—and it’s improving fast. This is raising reasonable fears that AI will ultimately replace human workers throughout the economy. But that’s not the inevitable, or even most likely, outcome. Never before have digital tools been so responsive to us, nor we to our tools. While AI will radically alter how work gets done and who does it, the technology’s larger impact will be in complementing and augmenting human capabilities, not replacing them.

Part 3: Flexibility.

For Mercedes-Benz executives, inflexible processes presented a growing challenge. Increasingly, the company’s most profitable customers had been demanding individualized S-class sedans, but the automaker’s assembly systems couldn’t deliver the customization people wanted.

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