This Christmas take time out to catch up on the latest thinking on leadership development and sustainability strategies.
Two new titles from IESE faculty shed light on the importance of the entrepreneurial mindset in business leadership, and thinking ahead in terms of sustainability.
Shaping Entrepreneurial Mindsets: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Leadership Development
Jordi Canals Margalef
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
The formal process of developing innovation in management is still lagging the demand for it, argues IESE Dean Jordi Canals. The threat of disruptive innovation, especially from digital transformation, is real. At the same time, the population is aging, demand is slowing and global competition is heating up. Stability is not an option for even the most successful companies today. They have to innovate with the agility of a startup, getting new offerings to market quickly and nimbly.
So how do you lead your company with an entrepreneurial spirit? That is the main question behind the 2015 book edited by IESE Dean Jordi Canals, which brings together deans and professors from leading business schools to set the course for developing managerial capabilities that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship – as the times require.
Along with fellow IESE professors Pedro Nueno, Antonio Dávila, Julia Prats, Bruno Cassiman, Joan Enric Ricart, Pankaj Ghemawat and Eric Weber, Canals provides CEOs and senior managers at established companies with the innovation and entrepreneurial competencies to navigate through uncertain times. If the future looks uncertain, make sure you can greet it with the agility and forward focus of an entrepreneur.
Strategy and Sustainability
Mike Rosenberg Dale
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
Many CEOs would prefer that sustainability issues would disappear. Yet they are here to stay and avoiding them is becoming impossible. The main question for today’s leaders is “how do we focus?” Prof. Mike Rosenberg’s new book, Strategy and Sustainability, is a direct response to this question aimed at C-suite executives in this dilemma.
Most books about sustainability never entertain the possibility of breaking the law or taking the low road on environmental issues. But this book speaks directly to business leaders who cannot ignore issues of sustainability, even if they'd like to. What executives need to do is face the issues strategically, in Rosenberg's view.
After laying down the groundwork for understanding what is at stake in sustainability efforts from many angles, Rosenberg takes an unconventional look at an array of different approaches and possible outcomes. From “taking the low road” – with minimal compliance – to more corporately engaging yet challenging strategic options such as “thinking ahead”.
CEOs and senior managers will continue to focus on the evolving demands of shareholders, employees and customers. This looks likely to bring questions of business strategy and sustainability closer together.