klingerii – advisory services

In my role as Nordic HR business partner for IBM Global Services, one of my high value activities was to lead endless workshops with all new IBMers and in-sourced employees at a time when we received thousands of new employees over some exciting years.  It was part of an overall transition I called Coordinated Change and Culture Integration, to welcome and integrate them and enable them to make a career in IBM.

One key topic was the self management of your career within the company, based on the foundational belief that each employee is accountable for him- or herself. You tell us your ambition and we support that if there is a shared interest. I talked about overlapping circles of passion and ambitions, one circle the company and one the individual, where the overlap represented a shared interest in a value exchange area, where the individual and the company had shared objectives and beliefs, service exchange of money, the contract. The circles where, pending on vision and objectives moving in different (?) directions.

Knowing about this overlap and whether the circles where drifting apart or would lead to a relevant , engaged and informed individual development plan about what skills I need succeed in my role today as well as tomorrow. If my tomorrow skills could be learned in the company today even if I was to leverage them outside the company. A provocative thought maybe, to seek an overlap with current employer to learn the trade of something that could be used outside the company later. Everyone would be happy as long as you deliver along the way? No? We could agree on a development plan for you and you would be engaged. No it is not cheating. It makes sense.

One guy responded to me and said. “Sven, I guess what you say makes sense but to be honest, I am really happy with the job I have now, I don’t need all this training. I am happy as it is. This type of talk only stresses me.”

I was stunned for a moment and then answered: “I see your point, and I don’t know what to say. We as a company do not really have an action plan for happy people. I never thought about that. Thanks. Good point.”  I thought about that for another second and realized all these good intentions to develop people could actually have motivational drawback, but refused to accept that so I added: “But one day, these circles will most likely drift apart, simply because the company circle will change direction, out of your or the company control, fair or not, your skill sets may not be relevant and there won’t be any circle overlap any longer between you and the company. You expect to do something and use skills that you are happy with but that is no longer valued. Then you are not happy any longer. We would call you upset, change resistant or whatever… as long as you are aware of that? But good point, we really don’t have actions for happy people. You should though.”

On top of that I was doing a business case for diversity only to realize that diversity itself is not a business case, only compliance related to be frank. Diversity should be justified and applied to a business problem and drive huge benefits of all kinds. For the same reason there, diverse groups can typically be good when creativity is needed to drive innovation, question things etc. But the hard realization is that everyone can’t be innovative all the time can they. Some people simply must do and not question, in that role.  Those same people/roles to some degree represent the happy people for which we don’t have any action plan. 

A paradox, really, is that your individual plan and the expectation to be innovative are relevant to which context you are. Conclusion is that we all need to be innovative and have those plans, as we know for sure that the context for each one of use will change, constantly. Personal mastery (as defined by Peter Senge) and innovation are typical fundamental competencies for the future irrelevant if you are happy or not right now.  But his comment stuck to me.

We really don’t have action plans for happy people, do we?

“The new opportunity is interdependent individuals working creatively together for complementary reasons” – @eskokilpi

I samband med att jag började använda Twitter 2010 så “upptäckte jag” Esko Kilpi, en fantastisk tänkare, som bor och verkar i Finland. Hans kommentar ovan fastnade fort i min hjärna eftersom den i en och samma mening sammanfattade flera av de stora tankar som jag brinner för avseende den globala tjänsteindustrin och hur vi skall utnyttja detta i Sverige.

Nyckelorden här är bland annat “interdependent, complementary och creatively”.

I ett samhälle där demokratin driver att de sittande skall bli omväljas väjer man för viktiga frågor och ropar till exempel inte “Vargen Kommer” i onödan, inte ens när “Vargen” sitter i köket, vilket den gör idag. Valspektaklet i USA är ett bra exempel på detta.  Dessutom behöver inte denna Varg vara farlig för ett mindre, socialekonomiskt stabilt samhälle som Sverige, där man till skillnad från Kina har en kultur som tillåter ifrågasättande som i sin tur driver innovation, en komparativ fördel för länder som Sverige, USA och även Indien har. Sverige är dock så mycket mindre än USA. Vi behöver inte så många fler tjänsteexporterande bolag för att vi skall må bättre. Men av de så kallade 70,000 exportbara företag inom “Creative Industries” i Sverige exporterar endast 10,000 (ref. Exportrådet). Tror man kan uppskatta hur många och hur stora små företag som måste startas inom en viss period…

Hur kan vi öka debatten om att stötta innovatörer, gaseller och småföretag att bryta ny mark osv. ännu mer? Hur kan vi andra invidiver exportera “oss själva” och jacka in i ett “complimentary reason”? 

Jag har sökt passande metaforer för att tala om detta ämne och den bästa metaforen jag kan komma på är Hollywood. Idag är man inte fast anställd i Hollywood, om man inte har ett stjärnkontrakt och är en bärande artist typ Jonny Depp eller Tom Cruise. Den resterande affärsmodellen är ett fristående projekt med egen P/L, egna investerare, egen budget och relativt sett kort syn på ROI. Majoriteten av de som jobbar i en filmproduktion är 200 % under projektet, projektet upphör, teamet skingras och kvar har de sina kepsar, utmärkelser och förhoppningsvis pengar på banken. Det är ett rollbaserat samhälle. Man är “Top Gun” bara under projektets tid, sedan återgår man, temporärt, till sin roll som skripta, regissör, B-skådis, special effects osv. Man samlas och söker enighet och konkurrens via sina skrå (om dessa finns) för att driva gemensamma intressen. Men grundgrejen är att det är en projektbaserad model som besätts av roller, mer och mer ifrån länder som Indien (även i filmbranschen, kolla eftetexterna!). Sedan finns det en uppsjö av Indieprojekt (independent). Vi kan lära mycket av Hollywood och vi kan tycka vad vi vill om detta men vi är på väg mot en liknande struktur / ett liknande system i andra branscher. Rollbaserat. Man har många roller. Man verkar glokalt. Man utvecklas hela livet. Det är tufft. Det kräver en högre grad av individuellt ansvarstagande, förmåga att jobba i virtuella team och andra kompetenser vi saknar en masse idag (se mina tidigare blogginlägg). Stora IT företag och företag som till exempel Skanska jobbar på samma sätt. De är i princip en portfölj av projekt som hanterar risk, står för finansiering och har system, strukturer, metoder, patent och andra assets för att fixa detta.

När USA tappade sin trippel A rating började en ny era i min värld i alla fall. Sedan dess har det kommit ett antal rapporter och studier i ämnet för den som är intresserad om makt-och förmågeskiftet Nord/Väst till Syd/Öst. Tyvärr så är allmänhetens syn på detta skifte av naturen av ondo och ett hot och fullt av fördomar. Man gillar inte förändring. I dagens Twitter-flöde från @framtidskomm kom ett bra inlägg från Jesper Strömbäck. Jag blev så glad när jag läste det eftersom han sammanfattar mina egna tankar också i detta inlägg.  Tack Jesper! Mera av detta! Vi måste prata om detta överallt, ifrågasätta och finna ny möjligheter. Ju fler ståndpunkter desto bättre. Benefits from diversity (of thoughts). 

 http://goo.gl/0jdBZ 

För några veckor sedan träffade jag Entreprenören Jack Lau, CEO, Digital Perception, på Hong Kong Trade Councils fruktostmöte tillsammans med Exportråde,. Jag frågade honom vad vi svenskar har för komparativ fördel som invidiver visavis till exempel Kina.

“Design, design, design – all kinds of design, GUI, industrial, product… ” var hans svar.

När kan vi ta Designtorget till Kina och indien då? undrar jag retoriskt för att ta en annan metafor. När blir dessa tankar en del av vår riktiga debatt i Sverige? Vi vill inte bara ha löften om jobb & sysselsättning inför valet, vi vill ha förutsättningar och visioner om hur vi skapar svensk konkurrenskraft som skapar jobb & sysselsättning. När kan vi diskutera med den där vargen tillsammans, “working together for complementary reasons”? När kan vi öppet diskutera detta och vad det innebär för skolan, nyföretagande och en mer aggressiv push att mobilisera varandra för en förändring som med stor sannoliket kan vara av godo för Sverige?

This day, I would like to praise three individuals I have met and worked with over the last two years in a globally recognized CSR initiative for HCL technology I managed together with Liselotte Hägertz Engstam. They are three real intrapreneurs and unsung  every day heroes within the Swedish education system. I am sure there are plenty around them so let them represent their combined team effort:

As we all know by now that the future of education is uncertain, critical and in desperate need for radical transformation (as highlighted well, at least according to me, by RSA):

Ref: RSA on Changing Education Paradigm) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

It is wise to praise role models that sparkle, inspire and facilitate change in a direction that is suitable, feasible and doable while also building strategic capabilities, here among our teachers and later students, in a direction of useful competencies, global fit and inclusiveness.

My blog is about how to act, contribute as a professional – in a global context, as an individual, an employee or an employer, in a company, in an organization or in the public sector – within the nation, and how to drive that change. Big topic, yes, and we need to build totally new capabilities and competencies across all levels to keep status quo, to be competitive or to simply survive.

I have worked in an international context for 20 years in virtual teams in the IT industry. I passionately believe that our kids today increasingly have an unleveraged potential to work across borders, in virtual ad hoc teams etc. The way they play World of Warcraft or plan activities using social media is not much different with how Pharma companies develop or disqualify new drugs, the way software is being developed in distributed collaborative environment — and SW/services is the major value component in any product today.  However, the way kids use technology today is not leveraged by the school system. The system sucks. The students are disengaged. There is a gap between the school plan and reality. The school system and the way we teach / train / prepare our students are not fully aligned with how the world looks like, in my perspective:

• Foster values and capabilities to prosper in virtual environments
• Deploy new technologies such as social media in education more aggressively
• Create awareness, trust and respect of opportunities around BRICS countries
• Establish personal contacts between individual students in BRICS
• Collaborative –crowd sourcing of education  — whatever that is – to evolve into a new way of life-long learning
• Build a platform and context for constant change, innovation and entrepreneurship
• How behavioral economics / gamification passionately can drive student engagement
• Acknowledge that we are global citizens in a local context

I admire all the teachers doing an extremely important job, in a context and structure that is outdated, for students that lack global reality check or accountability, having absent parents. Keep up the spirit! However, my three heroes of today:

From “The Stockholm City Global Citizen Program”: Gunilla Söderström & Lennart Kågestam

Ref: http://www.pedagogstockholm.se/-/Nyhetslistningssida/Internationellt/The-Global-Citizen

Gunilla & Lennart, from Stockholms Stads Utbildningsförvaltning, has – together with the principals of Stockholm Upper Secondary Schools – in many years now, rolled out a comprehensive awareness program about China and India and Swedish with education relevance, inviting business leaders, leading scholars & academics, artists, politicians and NGOs to share what is going on, what is needed etc. The inspired principals are getting mobilzed for change and has so far in their turn created field trips for students to India and China to learn, to get contacts, to teach etc. I have participated now since early 2011 and am totally blown away of how much competence there is around this topic that is not shared in media as a positive story.

The mathematics is simple. Each school send 5-10 kids to India / China a year or more, 10 schools, 5 years => 250-500 personal contacts that will take us as a small nation closer to a tipping point where kids really believe in China and India. The meetings that Gunilla & Lennart facilitates are leading edge, bottom up, aligning business, school and students in a unique, practical way. They deserve more publicity and recognition for this program even if they have received recognition from the Tällberg Foundation in 2011 already…    

The third hero is one (of many) true innovators and enablers behind the …

From “Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship”:Mikolaj Norek

Ref: http://www.sses.se/

Mikolaj Norek is a like Gunilla & Lennart well connected a true entrepreneurship butterfly who spends a significant amount of time at Universities in India and Sweden. He is a true global citizen and a key enabler to the unique program or Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. Being closer to business than Upper Secondary School, he is also active in the Global Citizen Program, but his and SSES teams’ key contribution here is the creation and delivery of a cross discipline course in Entrepreneurship (giving same academic credits!) covering architecture, arts, economy, university, technology and medicine. If a small country like Sweden is to prosper in the future we need entrepreneurships, new companies, service design capabilities and ability to bring ideas to new markets. SSES is one true relevant initiative in the right direction.

The activities you have done to transform the education system is suitable for all schools.

Have a good weekend!  Heroes! Respect!

This week I have spent considerable time to understand drivers and opportunities around gamification related to employee engagement. We can debate if gamification is a good name or not. Personally I believe the term behavioral economics instead, simply as that is what it is outside the game industry.

There are so many changes going on right now , see Gary Hamels fantastic pitch on reinventing management in HBR, so many technology disruptors (see Deloittes 2012 IT trend study) on top of the general global shifts when it comes to east-west service balance, BRICS accelerating capabilities versus western complacency, to be a bit bold… I don’t want to kick in open door, but you get my point.

Given the bold changes going on now at an exponential rate there seems to be a limited fuzz or debate about what this means to stay competitive, to create a sense of urgency in many companies which I find fascinating. The combination of big compliance projects, data explosion, social networks, mobility enablement, a general transition into a cloud delivery the entry of new generation workforce with a total different view of employer-employee relationship and a global game plan one would think change management and adaptive transformation would be a top discipline across all companies today?

There is so much to do!! And you are to do it with a disengaged staff!!! How?

You simply need to start building totally new capabilities, not tomorrow, today.

Either you are a start up needing support to go global or you are an existing company with the tough strategy to simply stay alive, but bottom line we need to provide more output whilst using resources in a situation where existing companies have difficulties attracting future workforce or engage existing staff as only 30% are engaged at work in a situation where the public sector needs to cut cost whilst serving more older people…. etc.

Financial Services and Public Sectors are typical areas where I personally believe we need to make a fundamental change using a combination of increased employee engagement, integrated global service delivery including offs-shoring and broken value chains, being able to understand core / non core capabilities and drive progress also in a more fun way. Let’s face it. Majority of people are disengaged. It’s a waste for them and the society at large.

Enters gamification, or  “the use of game design techniques, game thinking and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts.”  (Wikpedia).

Gartner believes 70 % of all major companies will have a gamified enterprise application in place in 2015 considering four major aspects such as regular feedback mechanism, strict enforcement of rules, monitoring achievable results and ability to show real progress. Sounds theoretical but it makes sense for client engagement and it certainly makes sense for employees and leaders in the entire Human Capital Management Domain.

Have a look at companies in the salesforce.com ecosystem, such as Badgeville.com, Yammer and workday and make your own conclusion what it means to you and your company. How often do you get recognition? Are you engaged at work? Where are you heading? How does it look for you? How do you progress your professional alignment with your passion goals?

Follow me on @gamifySE going forward which I will increasingly use as stage of innovation & experimental platform to gamify … Sweden!

I have just read the Tower Watsons “2012 Global Workforce Study: Driving Strong Performance in a Volatile Global Environment” and I am full agreement with their findings and recommendations. Below are my comments to this report.  

This report is a good case for change in how to adapt your company with a more engaged staff. As only approx 30 % of staff are engaged today it’s a waste of talent, my view.  The report is also aligned with similar reports the last year I have read from consultants such as Bain, Deloitte, Earnst & Young … and I am happy Tower Watsons add arguments to this case.

My blog vision is to create a platform for change – or a stage for innovation – to rapidly adjust the way we look at ourselves and our workforce to be able to participate and make money on an increasingly global services arena. My perception is that we don’t adapt fast enough to the multiple shifts going on right now related to service globalization from west to east, with new generational values entering the workforce.

I believe we need to start fixing the basic changes now, to be able to plan and discuss the future needs of new skills and behaviors at the workplace, of the workforce, to enable global citizenship and business acumen, to enable sustainable engagement and attractiveness as nations, organizations, companies and individuals …

Who is in charge? The answer is all of us, including you and me and we need to embrace some new competencies. I call them “sustainable competencies”, a need to be supported by a set of skills and behaviors and a fit future. Looking at how we manage companies today, in a 20^th century approach, I’d say we have lost focus on the needs of the 21^st century. This report supports that argument and we need to change.

 You can retrieve the full report here: http://www.towerswatson.com/research/7177

 My reflections on the report

The report outlines the relationship between “high levels of employee engagement — colloquially defined as the willingness and ability to go the extra mile — and improved financial and operational results”. It highlights the need to close two major gaps

1. enabling workers with adequate internal support, resources and tools – e.g. a fit culture?
2. creating an environment that’s energizing to work in because it promotes physical, emotional and social well-being – e.g. aligned with individual passion drivers?

A radical shift along these two areas requires “equivalent changes in how (and where) people are sourced, developed, trained, deployed, managed and rewarded”.

 It also requires “new and different competencies that HR executives anticipate will be in high demand in the next five to 10 years. These include digital skills, such as working virtually and using social media; agile thinking, particularly the ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity, and assess and plan for multiple scenarios; interpersonal skills, such as effective (physical and virtual) teaming and collaboration; and global operating ability, including managing diverse groups of people, understanding international markets and being culturally sensitive.”

 These are two bold and key statements, my view, as far too many companies both lack this operational capability totally and even worse, don’t even discuss it or do proof of concepts, pilot projects to learn what this means.  Start ups are excluded from this comment 🙂

 The future will also embrace a “hyper-specialization of jobs, to processes like crowd-sourcing innovative styles of organizational support and management.” – e.g. a role based society?

Again, my view is that, even if you are a regional or local player, you use skills and resources that are available globally.  Read that last sentence again.

Even if you are a regional or local player, you use skills and resources that are available globally.

What does that mean for you? I would personally call it a role based network society where your primary identity is related to what you do and what project you are working with, now, as opposed to job location, group, manager. These roles are increasingly globally available and comparable.

Tower Watson highlights some key questions to consider.  For me these are not really new. They were already identified in mid 90s by John Heskett in the “Service Value Profit Chain”, nevertheless they are still relevant and unfortunately still ignored in many companies and the way to work on them requries some regular (survey) data:

• How do leaders earn employees’ trust and confidence, and demonstrate interest in employee well-being?
• How do they balance messages about short-term priorities and financial results with longer-term vision and strategy?
• Do employees understand the organization’s strategy and how it connects to their own work?
• Do managers have the skills and time necessary to effectively differentiate and manage employees’ performance, coach their teams and support individuals’ career advancement?
• Are career paths clear to employees as they consider how to navigate today’s flatter structures with a variety of different employment arrangements?
• Are the right tools and processes in place for workers to collaborate and connect across locations and functions?
• Do employees have some level of flexibility in their schedules or work arrangements, and do they feel comfortable taking advantage of it?
• Are communication vehicles and content appropriately tailored for diverse audiences across ages, cultures and life stages while providing the necessary consistency of message?

 Tower Watson also suggest some relevant immediate actions (+ my comments)

• Establish (or review and refresh) a well defined competency model for leadership that incorporates the new requirements for leaders – requires competency assessment!
• Align competencies with strategic plans, particularly in terms of global expansion – sales, hr and operations to work tight together using tactical data!
• Regularly assess leaders’ capabilities against the model, and deliver development opportunities to close competency gaps – do you have a competency model? e.g. what does good look like?
• Ensure succession plans are robust and extend far enough into the organization
• Help senior executives find meaningful ways to demonstrate interest in, and commitment to, employees through regular communication, recognition and visible support for meaningful programs – including but not limited to visibility & storytelling?
• Create opportunities for leaders to actively sponsor innovative approaches to how, when and where work is accomplished – excel in virtual team leadership across boundaries?

 The report also provides a list of sustainable competencies (+ my comments) that I will add to my own list of sustainable competencies (note that these apply to all levels my view national, corporate, organization, individual,):

• Accessibility –are we all digital nomads?
• Global and cultural acumen –e.g. acting as global citizens
• Authenticity – be real
• Transparency – to drive innovation and tear down meritocrazy
• Risk leverage
• Interpersonal agility – inclusiveness driving innovation outcomes  
• Strategic flexibility
• Rapid decision making – delegated mandate but also ability to make cross company decision

 Naturally there are more competencies needed that will evolve (hence this blog!)

My personal number one competency though is Individual accountability. Surprisingly Tower Watson has excluded this which is interesting but also my only criticism to the report. Employee engagement must be a two way exercise; it is not the employer’s responsibility only. If you don’t like what you are doing you do have a personal accountability to ask yourself of this what you want, really? You also need to act on your own answer and be aware of what is going on around. There is something called acceptance phase along the change curve, and we must leverage it.

 Bottom line TW recommends some overall things which I agree with 100%

“Employers need to start with workforce planning, ensuring in particular there is a match between the required work and employees’ skills and experience. Do the people performing various assignments have the right skills?”

Now, to do that, you need some basic and real boring stuff such as an the information / knowledge from an integrated HR / talent management system / HR data warehouse capability to work with, using the 100+ data variables needed to do something useful operationally. I have done this, successfully, over many years hans on. It is possible, but the sad and boring part is that you need to get these systems in place, now, and part of the business case for that is mentioned above. You don’t get this capability for free.

 If you don’t understand what I am talking about you better hurry up and talk with leading HCM providers and understand what role based talent management and/or workforce transformation is, how that ties to you targeted business logic above and is supported by an optimised systems environment below. What is your core/non-core competency? If you can’t retain it, outsource it! etc. You can also call me and I would be happy to run a workshop with you and share my views.

 Finally some more pragmatic actions follow from Tower Watsons, with no specific logical flow.

• Train managers to discuss the connection between business goals and employees’ personal objectives and level of contribution
• Providing the right cascade of information — via the right vehicles — from the top of the house through the ranks, sharing both long-term goals and annual operating objectives
• Being clear and transparent in messages about goals and results, and sharing information in simple and straightforward ways to promote a sense of shared destiny and accountability
• Clearly communicating the skills and behaviors needed to meet strategic business goals, and employees’ responsibility for attaining these skills and behaviors
• Building expectations for skills and behaviors into both goal-setting and performance management processes to reinforce a culture of shared accountability
• Weaving those processes into the fabric of the culture so they aren’t seen merely as compliance or check-the-box exercises

The items mentioned above are key, still basic but many times never acted upon. The ways to do this comes from the company culture, broken down into leadership and employee fundamental competencies, or more what CSF in terms of behavior and attitude is needed in our company to succeed. Do you know? Have you asked yourself? The summary is still not groundbreaking new but a good check list to be considered along McKinseys 7 strategic fit model. The big thing here though is to create a transparent platform for collaboration, innovation, where everyone can contribute given their role and passion and get recognition for that irrelevant of where they are in the broken value chain of employees, off shore delivery partners etc.

 Bottom line to succeed with above a lot of technology needs to be in place to enable and support a new way of running a company. If you are in the service business and your CEO/COO does not discuss this already with your CIO and HCM/HE leader you simply are a laggard or your company has the wrong (or short term) focus. This applies to public as well as private sector.

Some concluding fundamental strategic questions for me though:

• Who is going to build and enforce these new required competencies in the future?
• How do we already in school build the platform to make our kids global citizens, more creative and accountable?
• Quo vadis?

Thanks Towers Watson!

This is good report including some hard data around the business case for engagement. The report ends with hygiene and important employee retention considerations around retirement and job security. Read it. It’s relevant. If you have a leadership role in a service business but no clue what I am talking about, call Tower Watsons or call me. I would be delighted to share my views.

As a starter, it depends on the context, so let us revisit some general definitions first as we can always refine the absolute definitions later:

“Sustainability is the general capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of responsibility, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship , the responsible management of resource use” – wikipedia

In this case, I am thinking of usage of competencies and professional resources (talents!) – individuals, groups, organizations or nations.

“Competencies are a set of skills that are essential to perform certain functions or roles. Each role normally needs a set of competencies in a number of areas to be effective and to succeed including a set of behaviors that encompasses skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal attributes that, taken together, are critical to successful work accomplishment. Competencies may be defined organizationally or on an individual basis.” – yourdictionary.com

 The whole idea of a competency view of anything assumes a professional role based thinking

 Creativity covers originality of thought, new expressions, imagination originative; productive, covering things as new innovative ways…

Needless to demonstrate the business case or start an obsolete argumentation, creativity and innovation for products, service and business will be imperative success factor in the future.

If we bring these three words together, sustainable + creative + competencies, we get a useful filter for a nation, a company or an individual to deploy when creating – or fine-tuning – its capability, to become/stay competitive, in an increasingly global service industry.

 To succeed fit values, systems and structures matters that are more agile than today and in a sense a bottom up revolution may drive this as the next generation of workers are expecting a totally different psychological contract with its future employer, whilst the existing organizations has a large degree of disengaged people whose talent is sub-optimized and/or wasted in times of cost focus.

 There are a lot of drivers accelerating the need to transform the existing organizations to be globally competitive, as they already use skills and professionals that are globally available. At the same time we need to foster a community for entrepreneurship that starts right from the beginning, building a pipeline of SMEs that will deliver service globally. Making decisions on core and non –core capabilities will lead to increasing offshoring / outsourcing and ability to work in virtual teams with other cultures.

 Hence, when I say I support the shift of building smarter and adaptive organizations & people via sustainable & creative competencies to succeed and endure globally, now and beyond, it covers a lot of traditional disciplines but it has a fragmented set of stakeholders. Ultimately it is the CEOs responsibility; practically it often ends up on HR table or in a transformation office to fix and the agenda is comprehensive from implementing new systems for talent management, a new operating model, new behaviors, new decision making capabilities, cultural alignment and maybe even new gamification layers to manage performance of the extended and globally integrated enterprise.

 Normally, you can’t do everything, but whatever you do needs to be aligned with that longer vision, and I simply love that agenda.

Related inspirational links:

CForbes on orporate Culture, the only truly sustainable competitive advantage

http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2012/02/08/corporate-culture-the-only-truly-sustainable-competitive-advantage/

Sustainable Competency-Oriented Human Resource Development  – a case

http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.74.3424%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=z6ZJULLCBLHN4QTrsYDoAg&usg=AFQjCNFPKp_ovVow97ulYG6IJ27apFpwvg&sig2=NZ77Vp1P9TKZpRudSyldlg

Our Sustainable Competencies (Boston Consulting Group)

http://www.bcg.com/expertise_impact/capabilities/sustainability/competencies.aspx