Graham Kittle, Leader, Business Analytics, IBM

By Graham Kittle

Today as more and more companies embrace Social Business they are quickly learning that social networks are more than the new water cooler where people congregate to talk about their weekend, share pictures of the kids and reviews of movies. These networks have the potential to be something far more powerful, a business’s new “production line” that is based around knowledge. However, instead of turning steel into aeroplanes we are turning ideas into innovation.

This picture of employees lined up on a production line, working together to develop the next great idea came to mind when I was reading a post by my colleague Jonathan Ferrar. The article, titled “The Hunt for Talent: How Social and Analytics are Reinventing the Art of HR” focuses on the never ending search to find the best of what looks to be a shrinking pool of talent.

As Jonathan states in the article, success today requires human resource leaders to trade in some outdated hiring practices in favor of new social business capabilities that have the power to quickly and easily identify the right people for the right jobs at precisely the right time to create the 21^st Century Workforce. 

These new capabilities include the use analytics where executives shift from gut-based decisions to fact-based decisions that leverage data and deliver real insight. The practice is largely untapped but as more and more areas of an organization experience the vast and valuable array of insights that are offered by this social/big data combination, including HR, that is changing and fast.

What I’d like to focus a little more on today is what comes after the offer letter has been signed. That’s right, hiring the right people is just the beginning. To use a golf analogy, the winners in this hunt for talent, the ones who get to sport the “green jacket,” are those who have a strong long game and a good short game. Translation: bringing on a talent is one thing, but unleashing their knowledge and expertise is another.

Today’s business winners succeed because of their people. These are the minds that drive innovation and unearth the next big idea that vaults the company forward. According to the 2012 IBM CEO Study, “Leading Through Connections,” 71 percent of CEOs cite human capital as their greatest source of sustained economic value. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that companies are maximizing each asset.

For example, in the age of the global business, where great ideas can come from any corner of the world, what happens when employees don’t have an outlet to share their thoughts?  We have all experienced this scenario.  What happens when that light bulb goes off and there is no one there to see it, to help nurture it and bring it to life? That’s right. Nothing.

This is where social business enters the discussion.

Today’s social networks are the businesses’ new production line, where employees, partners and clients connect with each other to share vast amounts of knowledge about an endless number of things. On the other side are businesses who—with the right tools—can identify new chances to innovate by doing the following:

Capture the insights of employees: What are people talking about? Which topics are getting the most support and from who? Don’t just look at the thought leaders in your corporate office but everyone, from Atlanta to Australia and beyond.

Analyze the knowledge this social network creates: Good ideas can come from anywhere, whether it’s a first year data analyst or a veteran programmer. Don’t just see what topics are trending but look under the hood at why. Engage those involved and get their insights and guidance.

Share ideas throughout the business: Every business must be committed to promoting ideas that could accelerate innovation, out-market competitors and make it to the top of the mountain.

Leverage social to more deeply engage with customers and reach new audiences: Social networks offer the opportunity to remove boundaries both in attracting talent as well as tapping into it and bringing its ideas to life to build a Smarter Planet.

So I ask, is it time you trade in your virtual water cooler for a social production line?

If you are interested in hearing more about how businesses are already seeing tangible results from social business, such as improving efficiency, productivity, time to market and market exposure, take a look at IBM’s new TV ad. Incidentally, I appear in the TV ad and talk about that experience in my photo journal on the Social Business Insights blog.

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For those who would like to keep this discussion going. Please join me between 4:00 pm EDT on April 10 and  8:00 am EDT on April 11 on Facebook.com/PeopleforaSmarterPlanet to share your thoughts and successes on bringing out the best in your employees, creating a smarter workforce and using data to maximize your organization’s social business opportunity. Please RSVP today.

Ben Goldhirsh, CEO, GOOD

By Ben Goldhirsh

Cloud computing is the new mantra for small businesses looking to go green.

That’s important because IT’s carbon footprint has been expanding. Between 2011 and 2020, carbon emissions for worldwide information communication technology (ICT) equipment and services are expected to double from 2 percent to 4 percent of total emissions, according to market research firm Verdantix.

Becoming a green business means more than just eliminating paper. It is about eliminating waste and reducing energy consumption. One easy step towards “going green” and significantly decreasing your carbon footprint is to eliminate or reduce energy-consuming on-premises equipment and move your IT to the cloud.

Cloud computing, storing and accessing data and software from remote servers, is changing the way the world does business. The cloud can be accessed from anywhere there’s an Internet connection. The cloud allows increasing amounts of Big Data generated from mobile devices and social channels to be captured, stored and continuously updated in one, central location. This dramatically reduces a business’ power consumption and in turn, energy bills.

When small companies run their own servers, idle time is a considerable problem. Small companies never use 100 percent of their computing power 100 percent of the time – it’s not even close. Most of the time, the server is idle, using power while not doing anything productive. Cloud technology means small companies use only the technology and energy they actually need. In other words, Cloud computing allows small, green businesses to work more efficiently and become even more eco-friendly.

In the U.S. alone, cloud computing will reduce carbon emissions by almost 86 million metric tons per year by 2020, generating a potential energy savings of more than $12 billion/year. Businesses, both established and start-ups, large or small can all go cloud, and go green, at the same time.

For example, large companies moving to the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent. Small businesses save even more energy than their larger counterparts – up to 90 percent.

To help spur wide adoption of these technologies, cloud providers, and more specifically managed service providers, are uniquely positioned to assist small businesses in devising and implementing a Green IT strategy. Guidance from local technology providers goes a long way to help shape sustainable, socially responsible – and profitable – green businesses.

Gartner predicts the worldwide cloud computing market will grow to more than $14 billion in 2013. This growth indicates the small businesses that make up 65 percent of the total business community are actively pursuing cloud computing as a way to keep costs down, improve processes and transition to a mobile workforce.

In addition to the green benefits of cloud computing, such services are also lowering the barrier to entry into business for many SMBs, such as eliminating the need to establishing expensive in-house IT capabilities. Also, cloud computing levels the playing field and enables start-ups and SMBs to act like, and operate like, organizations of much greater size and scope.

With SMBs serving as the growth engine for many countries, cloud computing can spur the growth of local industries and local economies in environmentally friendly ways.

Technorati Tags: cloud, cloud computing, green cloud, ibm cloud, IBM Smarter Planet, smarter systems, SMB, start-ups

Thomas Schaeck, Distinguished Engineer, Collaboration Solutions, Web and Social Software, IBM

By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications

When Thomas Schaeck talks about the future of social networking and collaboration at the enterprise level, an apt way to sum up his description of what’s possible is: You ain’t seen nothing yet!

While enterprises are already realizing great benefits from social collaboration solutions, what’s in place today essentially lays the groundwork for extraordinary capabilities to come. Schaeck, a distinguished engineer working on social software at IBM Collaboration Solutions, is helping lead research and development that will take social business collaboration to the next level.

Nothing demonstrates the future and potential of social business collaboration more than Smart Social Q&A, a research initiative that lets an employee ask a question and then analyzes it and routes it to the best people in the company to answer it. Schaeck conceived the idea to integrate the IBM Connections enterprise social network and smart social analytics with advanced routing algorithms to enable employees to get the most useful answer to any question they may have, as quickly as possible. He works with IBM Research and customers on realizing this idea.

“What we’re doing now enables all the employees of a company to really connect and work together in a very different way compared to what was possible before,” Schaeck said. “People don’t have to first find colleagues in order to ask them something. Instead, they simply ask. We make sure the questions find the right people to answer them.”

Pinpointing the best people possible to answer a question

Schaeck, who was lead architect for the WebSphere Portal platform and portal standards for several years, has played a key role in advancing social business through his work on IBM Connections. “We now have the opportunity to leverage the Connections platform and build powerful new applications and services on top of it,” he said.

Smart Social Q&A leverages the vast amount of employee social data contained in the “social graph” that’s established by IBM Connections. The social graph includes people and content, and maps all the interrelationships between people and content, across an enterprise. The graph draws from employees’ profiles, connections, tags, blog posts, forum posts, status updates — you name it.

When an employee asks a question using Smart Social Q&A, the solution analyzes the social graph to figure out who in the enterprise is most likely able and willing to respond. Using advanced text analytics, the solution can also consider people’s “willingness to help others” in routing decisions.

Whether an employee asks a simple question or has a high value and urgent request, such as needing specific data in order to close a deal, Smart Social Q&A will effectively direct it to the right people. The solution also stores responses, so if someone else asks the same question in the future the answer will be immediate.

Smart & social equals a competitive advantage

The beauty and great innovation of Smart Social Q&A is how the “smart” and “social” elements are integrated into the social networking concept. “We’re not just putting up a Q&A service that is separate from other things,” Schaeck said. “It is deeply integrated into a company’s social network.”

IBM is collaborating with Robert Bosch GmbH, IBM’s research partner on this initiative. The two are integrating an early version of Smart Social Q&A with the multinational engineering and electronics firm’s Connect platform, which is based on IBM Connections. Schaeck believes that within several years, social business platforms and smart applications leveraging them, like Smart Social Q&A, will be common and essential for large enterprises to remain competitive.

“Smart Social Q&A builds a bridge between all the people and all the knowledge within a company, whether it has a couple thousand or hundreds of thousands of employees,” Schaeck said. “It gets knowledge from people’s heads into the social business platform, where it becomes useful to everybody.”

In another initiative that points to social’s importance to building a smarter enterprise, Schaeck is helping integrate the social networking and collaboration capabilities of IBM Connections with IBM’s WebSphere Portal, Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management solutions.

“Bringing all these capabilities together is essential,” Schaeck said. “It’s where the real value for enterprises can be achieved.”

Schaeck, whose background had been strictly technical for much of his career, finds his endeavors in the social sphere highly gratifying. “It’s very exciting to work in this area, which is really about connecting people and helping them be more productive and innovative through smart use of modern technology,” Schaeck said.

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 Watch IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty discuss the roleof Social Business in the New Era of Computing at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 7, 2013.  

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Ginni Rometty, IBM Smarter Planet, Smart Social Q&A, smarter business, social business, websphere

Ralf Larsson, Director of Online Employee Engagement and Development, Electrolux

By Ralf Larsson

Technorati Tags: human resources, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, smareter business, smarter social business, social business

Matt Collins, Vice President, Social Business Marketing, IBM

By Matt Collins

It’s a well known fact that social networking has had a profound effect on society. Consumer social networks continue to creep into the workplace as many companies are encouraging and allowing the use of Facebook, Twitter, and even Pinterest, during business hours. What’s new is that this shift is now causing a ripple effect in the business world.

The next generation workforce expects to share, post, update, and communicate with their colleagues and customers using social networking tools to get real work done. But the tools businesses use go well beyond the consumer apps that so many embrace today.

Today, social technology can be integrated into any business process in sales, marketing or even product development. Business leaders in every industry recognize the impact social technology can have on improving productivity and unleashing innovation by tapping into the collective intelligence inside and outside their organizations.

For example Cemex, a leader in building materials such a cement, is reaping the benefits of social networking having reduced cycle times for new products by two-thirds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This shift of consumer to business networking, also known as social business, has become the next big opportunity for organizations who are looking to leverage the power of the social graph in their businesses to better reach clients and suppliers, while swiftly gaining insight on the data being created in these networks. The winners in this challenge will be able to react more swiftly to customer trends and out innovate competitors.

This week, IBM announced it has closed on its acquisition of Kenexa representing a major shift in the way social and analytics capabilities are applied to transform front office business processes. Kenexa, a leading provider of recruiting and talent management solutions, delivers a unique combination of cloud-based software and consulting services that integrates people and processes. This allows organizations to create a more effective workforce across their most critical business functions. By creating a smarter workforce, employees can drive innovation to bring products and services to market faster, resolve problems before they arise to improve customer service, and increase sales by building new skills – linking the right experts to the right clients.

This week, IBM published an OpAd in the Wall Street Journal on the opportunities presented by this fundamental industry shift. We discuss how social technology is about more than engaging fans and attracting “likes.” It’s about building communities within your workforce, where colleagues create and share ideas. It’s about empowering your customers and partners to help you build your brand. And it’s about erasing distinctions between “social business” and business.

There’s a lot of great work being done in the social business segment. And you’ll see a lot more of this at our annual Connect conference in January. The quicker you embrace the trend, the quicker you’ll engage your customers now, and tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, IBM, IBM Smarter Planet, smart work, social business, social media, social sentiment, socializing, twitter

Rudy Karsan, CEO, Kenexa - an IBM Company

By Rudy Karsan

Over the past several years we’ve seen social media and analytics begin to reshape how the world does business. Business processes from product development to sales are becoming more efficient, productivity is increasing, and organizations are getting smarter by gleaning insights from inside and outside the company.

But, while we’ve all homed in on the impact social + analytics can have on business processes, one area has been overlooked: the workforce. The impact of these technologies is felt by each and every employee, from those in the field to the executives in the front office.

Imagine the power and reach of a workforce made up of people who are in the jobs that are absolutely meant for them, fully engaged, empowered and productive. Picture a workforce that is flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of today’s market, that is able to harness its collective knowledge, talent and experience to anticipate client needs before they occur. These images are no longer visions of the future.

Today IBM announced it has closed on its acquisition of Kenexa, a company that I co-founded, representing a major shift in the way social business and analytics will be applied to transform front office business processes and how organizations will create smarter workforces to drive a Smarter Planet.

In a smarter workforce, employees will drive innovation to bring products and services to market faster, resolve problems before they arise to improve customer service, and increase sales by building new skills.

But don’t be fooled. Social business isn’t just about collaboration, and analytics isn’t just about customer sentiment. The real power behind these game-changing technologies is the ability to help harness the vast amount of expertise behind company walls, no matter the country, culture or time zone, and use this information to transform the very fabric of the business.

A recent study by IBM identified three key challenges that keep Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) around the world up at night:

1.   Cultivating creative leaders

2.   Mobilizing for speed and flexibility

3.   Capitalizing on collective intelligence.

While HR will play a leading role in addressing these challenges, every operational function – from sales to marketing to product development – will need to get involved. Solving these issues is what creating a smarter workforce is all about.

Three of the top things needed to create a smarter workforce are as follows:

1. Bring employees together in a collaborative and social way. Today’s workforce is becoming increasingly more comfortable, and most employees are using social and digital tools in their personal lives to connect with family and friends, share information, and more. Providing them with the opportunity to use the tools they are familiar with in their personal lives to help them do their jobs will help your organization attract a new generation of workforce.

2. Take advantage of deep human insights. You’ve implemented a social business platform, now what? Dig into the vast amount of social data now at your disposal. Employees will begin sharing content, tagging expertise, and identifying topics and areas of interest. This is a unique opportunity to find your organization’s future leaders, to identify strengths among your employees, to see who is best suited for what role and responsibility and cultivate these interests.

3. Tap into collective intelligence, measure and predict performance accurately. Collective knowledge within a company is seen as an untapped resource that can be used to create efficiencies and drive revenue. You can now tap into and take advantage of your organization’s greatest asset, the knowledge of employees. Social business tools can also be used to assess employees’ capabilities and collect immediate feedback. This helps employees understand how their contributions are actually impacting clients and contributing to the organization’s success.

With the right technology in place and a commitment to realizing a vision of a smarter workforce, organizations have the ability to fundamentally transform their business from the inside out to drive revenue.

We’re at a tipping point in workforce enablement. Organizations that recognize the importance of and become committed to enabling a smarter workforce will attract the right talent for their business and will ultimately have a competition advantage in their respective industry.

Technorati Tags: business, IBM Smarter Planet, Making the World Work Better, predictive analytics, Smarter Work, social business, social_media

Jamie Kirk, Online Project Officer, Local Government Association

By Jamie Kirk

“Houston, we have a problem.” These were the famous words from the stricken astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 space vessel when a technical malfunction left the crew stranded 200,000 miles from safety. In an iconic scene from the film adaptation, NASA employees gathered in a room and were presented with a small box of jumbled everyday items that the astronauts had in their damaged capsule.

The stark reality was that if they didn’t come up with a solution using just those items then the men would soon perish in space. In the face of this insurmountable uncertainty their commander reminded everyone in the room that “failure is not an option.”

In this time of immediacy, the traditional command structure was replaced by pragmatism. The NASA leaders didn’t care about job titles or what informal teams worked together as long as it produced effective solutions. By working collaboratively within tight constraints they managed against all odds to get the astronauts back to safety. Times of uncertainty, scarcity and high stakes when guided by effective leadership often produce the most creative solutions.

So, what does Apollo 13 have to do with public sector leadership, you ask?

Well, this near disaster hides some helpful lessons for the crisis that is now facing the public sector. Public sector leaders, like their Apollo 13 counterparts, need to work with immediacy, work collaboratively and produce radical solutions using the little resources that they currently have. The hard reality is that due to budget cuts and demographic changes many funding outlooks for local authorities project that by 2020 social care and waste spending will absorb the vast majority of all their resources.

This means that unless significant change happens there will be virtually no resources for any other local public services within a decade. In short, public sector leaders can’t just rely on best practices from the status quo but will have to forge new solutions to avoid the imminent disaster. Given this backdrop how can public sector leaders learn to equip themselves for the forthcoming challenges?

IBM has put one solution forward. It opened up its Top Talent programme to develop current and future leaders across theUK public sector. I was one of the participants on this six-month course that began in May. The cohort was made up of a cross section of public sector staff, ranging from experienced IT managers to those like me who were relatively nearer the beginning of their career. Participants in the course were given a professional IBM coach to help them get on the right direction to complete a personal transformational project within their organization.

We used free UK public sector online tools such as the Knowledge Hub, to help our small group share and create ideas. We were provided with leadership material and became well versed in psychological models such as Myers Briggs to aid us on our journey and more effectively influence change within their organization. To stimulate ideas the group visited the IBM research labs in London and Dublin to see cutting-edge technology developments. These trips began changing the perception of IBM from a technology supplier to a partner in helping the group understand the changes impacting their organization and beginning a process of building crucial connections between the public and private sector.

What became clear to me over the course of the programme was that everyone bonded the more they shared their experiences and challenges from their professional life. Job titles and organizational affiliations dissolved into the background as everyone assisted other members to achieve their goals. This cohort will graduate at the end of November and by empowering public sector leaders to think differently and creating an effective support network, the Top Talent programme has allowed the participants and I to take big steps to make our challenges seem less overwhelming and insurmountable.

As the old adage goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. This period of uncertainty also offers the opportunity to create sustainable public services for the challenges we face this century. So while the future projections for the public sector may seem like the beginning of a disaster movie, the counterbalance of effective leadership, combined with a dose of pragmatism and a little luck can result in a happy ending.

Technorati Tags: IBM Smarter Planet, IBM Top Talent Program, Public, smarter business

Jeanette Horan, Vice President and CIO, IBM

By Jeanette Horan

As technology advances, enterprises are increasingly challenged to find creative ways to use tech to improve their operations and grow their business. It can seem like a daunting challenge. But I’d like to share a bit of wisdom that IBM has come to learn. That is, sometimes, looking within and tapping the creativity of your own family, can produce an endless stream of innovative ideas.

Today, IBM kicks off HackDay, a two-day online discussion that gives our employees the chance to think big and exchange ideas on how we can accelerate IBM’s transformation into a social business. This includes everything from new tools and work processes to fresh ideas on how to deliver value to IBM clients in a connected world.

As IBM’s CIO, I am excited about HackDay because getting thousands of talented IBMers together to collaborate is a powerful opportunity with limitless potential. One of the most important responsibilities of my organization is to help IBM and IBMers work more effectively and realize our full potential. It is great to know that the ideas generated over the next two days will come from the real experts – the people who put technology to work every day in their diverse jobs.  

The specific challenges we are framing HackDay around are How We Work, The Client Experience, and Code and Technology. A fourth category covers anything not included in the first three. The topic names underscore the importance of technology in all that we do inside IBM and with our clients.  

I chose to sponsor the How We Work challenge, not only because my job focuses on the employee experience and operational excellence, but because of the social business transformation potential of our many business processes. Rethinking existing processes through a social business lens is already delivering returns for IBM, as we have seen benefits in sales, marketing and product development by increasing the level of collaboration and real-time communication among employees. Moving forward, we are integrating social into the fabric of all our work — finance, procurement, business partner activities, HR, supply chain and many other areas.

Expanding social business in the enterprise is more than just a cool thing to do – it is rapidly becoming essential to success. This is truly a game-changer in the way we work within our own walls as well as the experience we create for our clients.

In order to grow as an enterprise, IBM believes it must always find ways to improve both structurally and culturally, while unlocking creativity and innovation in its employees. Today, I am encouraging every IBMer to see HackDay as an opportunity to re-think IBM’s business processes and interactions as being more open and community-based than they have ever been. In this way, we can envision benefits from the digital age that might not have been considered before.

The message is this: Ask yourself, “how could adding a social dimension to this process or task deliver new value?” Then take that answer, go forth and build your solution.

I can’t wait to see what we come up with.

What promise does social computing hold for your business?

Technorati Tags: IBM, operations, smart business, Smarter Planet, social analytics, social business, social sentiment, transformation

As globally-integrated firms like IBM are discovering, the roles of formal authority and hierarchy are declining in the workplace. What remains, however, is the core purpose they served – the need to influence others, to make a difference in other people’s actions and the thoughts and feelings that drive those actions.

Thus, the key challenge for IBM and others is this: if authority and hierarchy are waning, what are now the primary tools of influence available to those responsible for the performance of others? How, for example, can IBM’s Global Enablement Teams of senior leaders from mature economies best influence and develop the skills of local managers in emerging economies?

In this new world, we believe there are three key tools of influence, which we call the three imperatives of leadership:

Manage Yourself: Your ability to influence others begins with you and who you are as a person, and the most important feature here is whether people trust you. Are they confident you will do the right thing? Effective leaders now build relationships based on trust, not authority or social ties like friendship. And they do that by earning people’s confidence in their competence and character, the key components of trust. People trust someone who knows what to do and how to do it (competence) and who intends to do the right thing (character). Trust is the foundation of all influence other than coercion.

Manage Your Network: Interdependence has always been a hallmark of all organizations – no person or group works in isolation. But as organizations become more amorphous and fluid, as they spread around the world and embrace diverse cultures, this ability to connect and collaborate with those you don’t control grows even more crucial. It’s the only way to wield broad influence in the political environment that exists in all organizations.

Manage Your Team: Whether a group formally works for you or you assembled its members voluntarily for a specific reason, you must convert this group into a true team whose members are mutually committed to a common purpose – a group with such strong interpersonal ties that they believe “we” will succeed or fail together. When a team “clicks” in this way around a common purpose, its members are more committed, work harder, and are more productive and innovative because no member wants to let the others down. No leader can make a group into a team by decree. She can only foster the conditions that create a team and then manage the team through the social ties that bind members around a common purpose.

This strategic approach to management and leadership offers clear advantages:

The imperatives don’t depend on authority or hierarchy. They apply whether your responsibility for a group is assigned by an organization, conferred by members of the group itself, or assumed by you as you voluntarily step up to leadership.

The three imperatives are a better way to think about management and leadership than the hodge-podge of generic activities that traditionally defined those roles. Instead of performing 10-15 activities – motivating, controlling, communicating, and so on – you can focus on three key strategies that provide a simple but powerful framework for all your work. There’s no need to ask, “When do I apply the imperatives?” because the answer is, “Always – everything you do is an opportunity to apply and pursue them.”

The three imperatives are unlikely to change because they work across generations and cultures, all of which value trust, collaborative relationships, and commitment to a valued mutual purpose.

Finally, the imperatives are a guide to personal growth. They are the key areas that you must master on your years-long journey as a leader, guideposts you can use to assess your progress every day.

Linda A. Hill is Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and chair of the school’s Leadership Initiative.  Kent Lineback, now a coach and writer, was a manager and executive for nearly 30 years. They are co-authors of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011)  www.beingtheboss.com

Here’s another point of view from the NextGen Leaders series, from Wharton’s Mike Useem.

Technorati Tags: emerging markets, Global, globalization, Harvard, Harvard Business School, Leadership, skills

by Michael Useem, Professor of Management and Director of the Leadership Center, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

A checklist is only as good as its underlying foundation, and the foundation is only as solid as the materials and engineering that go into it.  That also applies to effective leadership, which I believe can be distilled into a set of core principles that help leaders navigate complex challenges around the world.

To build a Leader’s Checklist, I have tapped not only my own experience but also that of an array of investigators, researchers, thinkers, and managers.  I have concluded that management experience points to a core of just 15 mission-critical leadership principles that vary surprisingly little among companies or countries:

1. Articulate a Vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision and communicate it to all members of the enterprise.

2. Think and Act Strategically: Set forth a pragmatic strategy for achieving that vision both short- and long-term, and ensure that it is widely understood; consider all the players, and anticipate reactions and resistance before they are manifest.

3. Honor the Room: Frequently express your confidence in and support for those who work with and for you.

4. Take Charge: Embrace a bias for action, of taking responsibility even if it is not formally delegated, particularly if you are well positioned to make a difference.

5. Act Decisively: Make good and timely decisions, and ensure that they are executed.

6. Communicate Persuasively: Communicate in ways that people will not forget; simplicity and clarity of expression help, as do elements ranging from personal actions to grand events.

7. Motivate the Troops: Appreciate the distinctive intentions that people bring, and then build on those diverse motives to draw the best from each.

8. Embrace the Front Lines: Delegate authority except for strategic decisions, and stay close to those most directly engaged with the work of the enterprise.

9. Build Leadership in Others: Develop leadership throughout the organization.

10. Manage Relations: Build enduring personal ties with those who look to you, and work to harness the feelings and passions of the workplace.

11. Identify Personal Implications: Help everybody appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and future with the firm.

12. Convey Your Character: Through gesture, commentary, and accounts, ensure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.

13. Dampen Over-Optimism. Counter the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems, and protect against the tendency for managers to engage in unwarranted risk.

14. Build a Diverse Top Team: Leaders need to take final responsibility, but leadership is also a team sport best played with an able roster of those collectively capable of resolving all the key challenges.

15. Place Common Interest First. In setting strategy, communicating vision, and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first, personal self-interest last.

To illustrate just one of the principles, consider the last, placing common mission ahead of personal interest, especially when its seems least natural to do so.  This precept is well captured in a U.S. Marine Corps dictum:  “The officer eats last.”  In business, it appears in author Jim Collins’ appraisal as one of the defining qualities of those who lead their companies from “good to great.”

And it emerged as a vital theme when I interviewed Samuel Palmisano this past January.  He said that if you don’t put yourself first, then leadership decisions become easier.

“Because if you’re worrying about your reputation or your legacy or whatever – you put something first beyond the institution – then it’s hard because your reasoning is clouded,” he explained.  It is best to look at your leadership decisions and say, “No, it’s not about me.  It’s about the future of the IBM company. How does IBM stay sustainable for the next 100 years?”

List adapted from The Leader’s Checklist by Michael Useem.

Editor’s note: This post is the first in an occasional series, NextGen Leaders, which presents expert points of view on what it takes to lead in today’s global economy.

Technorati Tags: business, IBM, Leadership, MBA, strategy, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton