The Gartner Talent Angle

Derek Van Bever, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School, talks with CEB about how to better inform decisions about business model innovation and what it can mean for talent.

Many attempts at business model innovation fail. Derek Van Bever argues that executives need to understand how business models develop through predictable stages over time — and then apply that understanding to key decisions.

As the Chief People Officer at Microsoft, Kathleen Hogan is responsible for the company's cultural transformation. She joins us to talk about how Microsoft is using a technique called "Screening In" to drive cultural change through diversity. Hogan is new to the HR function, but not to talent management. Previously she was vice president of Microsoft Services, a team dedicated to helping businesses and consumers maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft technologies. Hogan has also served as corporate vice president of Customer Service and Support, responsible for the strategy and delivery of consumer and commercial technical support and customer service for Microsoft products and services.

Daniel Kahneman's ground-breaking research into decision making and judgment has challenged fundamental beliefs about human nature. In study after study,together with Amos Tversky, he showed that when it comes to making decisions, humans are predisposed to irrationality. Their surprising findings have had profound implications for everything from behavioral economics and politics, to advanced medicine and sports.

Their work, and its impact, is hardly obscure. Mr. Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics (Mr. Tversky died in 1996.)

Dan Frawley leads CEB Ventures, a program designed to uncover the bleeding edge of Tech and how it impacts our decisions on talent and operations. He's interviewed over 200 companies to identify the latest trends and pathways to the future. He joins the CEB Talent Angle to share his perspective on HR Tech and what it means for companies and the HR function.

• Previously, Mr. Frawley served as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of CEB Iconoculture, Inc., since December 2002 and June 2010 respectively.
• Chief Executive Officer of Techies Com Inc.
• Senior Vice President of Channel Strategies at Gartner Group
• Mr. Frawley founded J3 Learning Corp. and served as its President until 1996.
• He served for seven years as an Aircraft Carrier Fighter Pilot in the U.S. Navy, where he worked in active missions throughout the Middle East and Africa.
• He serves as a Director of Jobs2Web Inc., CEB Iconoculture Inc., MyAlerts, LLC and Fision, LLC. He served as a Director of HotGigs Inc. Mr. Frawley served as a Director of Techies Com Inc., from July 1998 to January 7, 2002. Mr. Frawley received his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Economics from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project believes that we're at our best when we move rhythmically between spending and renewing energy — a reality that companies must embrace to fuel sustainable engagement and high performance. When you're intent on supplying fuel in each dimension of energy, you're creating happier people that will affect your organization's success.

Tony's most recent book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His previous book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy Not Time, co-authored with Jim Loehr, spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 28 languages. In 2013, Tony launched a biweekly column for the New York Times titled "Life@Work." Tony is a contributor to numerous publications including The Huffington Post and Harvard Business Review, and for three years, he wrote the most popular blog on HBR.org. He is also a regular contributor to CBS This Morning.

Peter Shankman, a pioneer in modern PR, marketing, advertising, social media, and customer service, profiles the famously nice executives, entrepreneurs, and companies that are setting the standard for success in this new collaborative world.

He explores the new hallmarks of effective leadership, including loyalty, optimism, humility, and a reverence for customer service, and shows how leaders like Jet Blue's Dave Needleman, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Steve Jobs of Apple, Ken Chenault of Amex, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, and the team behind Patagonia harness these traits to build productive, open, and happy workplaces for the benefit of their employees, themselves, and the bottom line.

Fifty-eight percent of the companies cited significant talent gaps for critical leadership roles. That means that despite corporate training programs, off-sites, assessments, coaching, all of these things, more than half the companies had failed to grow enough great leaders. You may be asking yourself, is my company helping me to prepare to be a great 21st-century leader? The odds are, probably not.

Roselinde Torres distills down the characteristics of leaders who are thriving and what they do differently,and also the preparation practices that enable people to grow to their potential.

* Roselinde Torres is a senior leader in the People & Organization practice at The Boston Consulting Group and has served as the first global head of BCG's leadership topic. In addition, she has been a member of the firm's Americas Leadership team.

Companies can't survive without innovating, but most put far more emphasis on generating "Big Ideas" instead of executing them--turning ideas into actual breakthrough products, services, and process improvements. That's because "ideating" is energizing and glamorous. By contrast, execution seems like humdrum, behind-the-scenes dirty work. But without execution, Big Ideas go nowhere. In "The Other Side of Innovation," Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble reveal how to execute an innovation initiative--whether a simple project or a grand, gutsy gamble.

Smarter Faster Better identifies eight key productivity concepts—from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics—as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters—this painstakingly researched book explains that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don't merely act differently.

Her third book, Wilful Blindness was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book award. In 2014, the Financial Times named it one of its "best business books of the decade." Her next book A Bigger Prize won the Transmission Prize. Her most recent book Beyond Measure : The Big Impact of Small Changes was published in 2015. Her TED talks have been seen by over 3 million people.

She is a Trustee of the London Library and sits on the Council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as well as one the boards of several private companies. Margaret blogs for the Huffington Post in the US and the UK and for Inc.com. and mentors senior and Chief Executives.