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Leadership & Organization Blog

Avoid pilot purgatory in 7 steps
– Pilot purgatory sounds like a hectic aviator schedule, but with the Internet of Things, it signals pilot programs traveling at a snail’s pace – if at all.

6 elements to create a high-performing culture
– What often separates the highest-performing organizations from the rest is culture.

The 2 Cs of management excellence 
– What is good management? For years at McKinsey, we have applied science and measurement to that question.

Time for an EX intervention?
– Mark our words: Employee experience is the new evolution from employee engagement for defining how companies... should interact with their people.

The path to agility: a staged approach
– The essential questions to ask during each stage of your agile journey.

Culture: 4 keys to why it matters
– What separates the highest performing organizations from the rest? Clever strategy? Superior products? Better people?

Slowing down to speed up
– The world has always been one of change. But as technology evolves and speeds up our lives, something about the changes we face... is different.

Employee experience: essential to compete
– A growing number of organizations suddenly are into employee experience. They’re discarding the stiff, outdated term human... resources and many have even replaced chief human resources officer with chief employee experience officer.

Amazon’s Alexa – your next Chief Talent Officer?
– Digital recruitment – think Monster and LinkedIn – is routine today. But what if a voice-powered AI assistant like... Amazon’s Alexa could find the best candidate for a critical role just by asking it?

TalentTech: enabling talent in the digital age 
– The 1999 sci fi action classic “The Matrix” telescoped the future of tech in talent when Keanu Reeves’... character Neo exclaims, “I know kung fu,” shortly after a computer in his skull uploads the martial art into his intellect.

Paradigm shift for leaders
– Organizational agility presents an existential crisis for middle management.

Culture can make or break agility
– While many companies are striving to become agile, only four percent of survey respondents have completed an organization-wide... transformation, the latest McKinsey research finds. The No 1. problem they cite is culture.

Scaling up organizational agility
– Once you have succeeded with several pilot projects for becoming agile and have a strong foundation in place it’s time to... scale agility across the enterprise.

Get agile faster through pilot programs
– While a strong foundation is essential to become a nimble organization, establishing a well-designed pilot program can serve to... initiate agility.

Building the critical foundation of an agile organization
– Creating an agile organization that stands the test of time depends on its foundation.

Getting agile right in your organization
– Across industries and regions, the concept of organizational agility is catching fire as companies scurry to deal with rapid change... and complexity. Yet, achieving the ability to reshape themselves quickly is proving elusive for most.

Activate agility: the five avenues to success
– In a time of rapid change and unprecedented complexity, only the nimble survive! In 1935, the life expectancy of an S&P 500 company... was 90 years.

Human resources in the age of automation
– McKinsey’s vision for the future of employee-related activities – focuses singularly on driving value from talent.

The critical importance of the HR business partner
– Nearly a decade ago, CEOs surveyed by McKinsey stressed the importance of talent strategy to their organizations. But they also... voiced misgivings about HR’s ability to manage the talent process strategically and deliver maximum value to the business.

Focus on the five percent
– Recruitment is one of the most difficult things a company does, but doing it well can pay off.

Be rational about irrationality
– Savvy leaders can use irrationality to accelerate vs. derail their change efforts.

How effective goal-setting motivates employees
– Nobody likes annual performance reviews. But what if you could find a way to flip it.

4 strategies for linking talent to value
– In many ways, organizing a successful business isn’t much different than hosting a family barbecue.

How to nudge your way to better performance
– Build a nudge unit to leverage behavioral insights.

Crucial steps to shape your future performance management
– Think about your last performance review or development discussion. Turns out everyone really does hate performance management.

Driving value in talent processes using analytics
– Imagine abandoning traditional resumes and campus interviews in favor of online games, videos, and algorithms land fresh recruits... to your company.

It really isn’t about 100 days
– Congratulations on your new leadership role. Now, get moving fast.

Welcome to the ‘Insights on Leadership & Organization’ Blog
– Welcome to our one-stop shop, where leaders can find impactful, fact-based pragmatic advice—in 600 words or less.

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