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This is a transcription of our Interview with Don Schmincke, CEO, Strategic Performance Advisor, Author, Researcher, Keynote Speaker. You can watch the original video interview here or tune in to the podcast episode here, iTunes, Spotify and other podcast apps by searching "Risk Management Show".

Boris: Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to out interview with Don Schmincke.

Don is a former MIT and John Hopkins Institute researcher-turned organizational strategic development consultant. He's

In this week's blog post, we're sharing insights on digital transformation from Helen Fanucci, a Digital Transformation Sales Leader, Team Builder and Strategic Thinker at Microsoft. She is also an Educational Counselor for Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she recruits and interviews the next generation of technology leaders.

Helen has started her career as an engineer, as a graduate from MIT and started working for IBM. She shares, shortly into her career, she has realised that she d

Mediocre people occupying senior Leadership positions is one of the chief reasons for the fiasco and humiliation that organizations like Enron and WorldCom faced.  The practice of recruiting average people at the top is omnipresent and often goes unnoticed until the results begin to surface, which is typically too late for any intervention.

Smart people decisions matter a lot in achieving profitability.  Research indicates that a return on average human asset of 5% is typical in many industries. 

Senior leaders love to be challenged, when you prove them right!

Unfair? Yes. There are plenty of great leaders who truly want their staff to speak up. However, even some of these may suffer from measurement blindness.

When it comes to numbers and decision making there are three positions people take.

Believers

These people believe measurement enhances decisions. They will ask for measurement and readily listen to the numbers being presented, they will look to see if there are any abnormalities and

Enterprises worldwide face problems selecting, staffing, developing, compensating, motivating, and sustaining their key talent.  Building a sustainable Talent pipeline is quite strenuous even for large multinationals.

Replicating best practices from somewhere and applying them alone isn’t sufficient for organizations to build a Talent pipeline and achieve Competitive Advantage.  This warrants overcoming arduous challenges associated with this digital age, including:

• Adjusting to varying dynamics i

VUCA relates to threats that people and enterprises often encounter.  The acronym reflects the constant, dramatically-transforming, and unpredictable world.  The concept originated in 1987, based on the theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus.  The term was first used by U.S. Army War College to describe the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous general conditions globally.

The acronym found traction after 2002, when it was considered an emerging idea to be discussed among the strategic le

For Post-merger Integration (PMI) to be successful, it is critical that we have clearly defined, appropriate, and comprehensive roles and responsibilities.

Post-merger Integration is a highly complex process. It requires swift action as well as running the core business activities simultaneously.  There is no one-size-fits-all approach to a successful PMI Process. However, careful planning focusing on the strategic objectives of the deal and the identification and capturing of synergies will help

Today’s C-suite is making a significant investment in new technologies.  Yet, it is failing to achieve full value. Technologies are being deployed in pockets or silos without a Strategy for scaling the Innovation from these technologies across the enterprise. Unable to scale their Innovation, organizations are not realizing the full benefits of their technology investments.

An Innovation Achievement Gap exists. What is the Innovation Achievement Gap? This is the difference between potential and r

It is wonderous how adaptive we are and I as I wrote last week, adaptative leadership is key right now. Top of the list of my tips for exercising adaptive leadership is to experiment. Now I know we are all experimenting at the moment, one way or another, just to get by. However, with our incredible ability to adapt, you and your teams are adjusting at a pace that many will be surprised by. So, now that much of the mad scramble to adjust to new ways of working has happened, let’s start thinking a

“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” - John C. Maxwell

Many people in a position of authority struggle with their Leadership Presence. They have adopted the kind of persona that they assume a leader is supposed to have: a TED Talk cadence, authoritative body language, studied informality, and a package of carefully curated slides. Yet, in adopting this stance it showed that you are not authentic and people will assume your message i

Organizations are continually searching for innovative ways of enhancing competitiveness. This is brought about by evolving external factors such as changing demographics, globalization, and technology. Because of changing dynamics, it has required managers to rapidly rethink and retool their organizational management strategies.

Coming up with the appropriate strategies calls for an increasing need for organizational diagnosis in developing and maintaining a competitive advantage. Researchers be

Family businesses are an overlooked form of ownership. Yet, they are all around us. One-third of companies in the S&P 500 index and 40% of the 250 largest companies in France and Germany are defined as a family business. A family business means that a family owns a significant share and can influence important decisions.

As family businesses expand their entrepreneurial beginnings, unique performance and governance challenges are encountered. The generations that follow the founder may insist on

Status quo talent strategies no longer work for high performing organizations. Old models no longer work. It does not anymore meet the needs of the global workforce.

HR Strategies are out of step with the way work is conducted. Jobs that are structured around a 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday workweek is considered inconvenient and counterproductive. Training focuses narrowly on skill building not on aligning talent capabilities with strategic objectives. Career development does not reflect th

Effective Succession Planning in Family Business has been redefined in the 21^st century.

The Family Business sector continues to be vibrant, successful, and ambitious. This, despite tough economic conditions and accelerating pace of change.  Family firms are vital to all economies.  It offers stability, a commitment for the long term, and a responsibility to their communities and employees.

However, despite the extraordinary longevity of individual family firms, the average life span across the se

Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.  The more we play golf, the more we realize that there is a negative correlation between how hard we swung and how far we hit the ball.  In golf, rarely is much accomplished from merely swinging hard. Sheer force does create action, but this is often negated by a lack of strategy. Life in golf, we need to learn to pull back a little, focus, and work on s

A company’s cultural situation is challenging, multidimensional, and difficult to deal with. It constitutes a powerful set of emotional resources. To a degree, culture can be compared to natural forces such as winds and tides. These elements are there in the background, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes obvious. Endowed with immense power, they can waylay plans and inhibit progress.

Natural forces can’t really be tamed or fundamentally altered. But if you respect them and understand how to make the

While the concept of “leading alongside” is a noble one for an internal adviser, it is not accomplished easily overnight. You see, the problem is the “unconscious” in “unconscious bias”. The decision makers you are trying to influence are not aware of the unconscious biases that may be clouding their judgement unless they have been trained to understand their sources and to recognise them. It is useful to understand and recognise the sources of their biases: genes, beliefs and aspirations.

Our un

Customers, these days, demand ever-higher levels of personalized products and services to suit their needs. Their demand is grounded on technological disruption and access to up-to-date information. They believe that in an economy characterized by disruption and operational innovation—that makes customization possible—they have an excellent chance of getting customized offerings from the suppliers.

Thus, Product Strategy needs to evolve and become more robust, accordingly, to keep up with changin

A major reason for employees leaving their workplaces is conflict with their bosses. To succeed in today’s fiercely competitive market, organizations need to invest in developing their leadership, such that they further develop their teams by training them on the desired competencies and create a sense of engagement in them.

A big challenge for leaders is getting their employees to believe in the organizational vision. No two personalities have the same viewpoints and aspirations, thus conflict i

Cost Optimization Programs are hard to manage, sustain, and often tend to fall short of delivering the promised value. The failure could be attributed to many reasons—including lack of clearly delineated objectives, failure to account for the operational difficulties, internal resistance to change, trying to cut corners from everywhere, not paying attention to planning optimal utilization of resources; lack of direction, accountability, and management agreement.

However, the tremendous pace of te