Marketers and communicators must be careful about how they communicate internally and externally in a time of crisis.

COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus, has caused unease across the globe. Millions of people are on lockdown, travel is being restricted, and markets are responding badly as the virus continues to spread.

It’s a tough time for the broader society, which means it can be a challenging time for marketers and communicators. In crisis management, there’s a saying that goes, “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control what you do about it.”

We live in a different world now, but will it stay that way?

Read the full report from Ogilvy below.

The post COVID-19 How To Communicate in Turbulent Times appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

The Naval Special Warfare community is a culture founded on trust and extreme levels of accountability. It is also the perfect example of what new corporate leadership needs to emulate. Here’s why:

During SEAL training, peer reviews are a weekly event. There is a process called “top five, bottom five.”

Every week the top five performers in the class are ranked, as well as the bottom five. Usually, those landing in the bottom five are star performers — from a tactical or physical standpoint. But they have character or ego problems.

These classmates are organically purged. This system roots those issues out before a student ever gets close to graduating. It’s one of the many ways to protect the culture!

It’s A Brave New World
The leadership and management needs of today’s successful companies have changed.

The old hierarchical model that depended mostly on only a few people at the top for leadership simply doesn’t work anymore.

In today’s more volatile and uncertain battlefield, decentralized controls and leadership through networks of people at all levels are essential for success. One person doesn’t have the time or resources to sift through mounds of data about company performance, industry, economic environment or competitors.

Organizations move too quickly for that model to be effective.

The rules of leadership are different now.

Here are some rules for building employee trust, creating a culture that ensures their best performance, and being an effective leader.

BE AUTHENTIC
Be yourself. Think about the attributes you have and use them as an asset to drive your mission.

BUILD RAPPORT WITH YOUR TEAM
Break down barriers. Spend time with your team outside of the office. Get their feedback and show that you value their opinions.

CONNECT YOUR TEAMS TO THE BIGGER PICTURE
Employees feel and perform better when their work serves a purpose. Reconnecting employees with the company’s vision can be a powerful tool for increasing engagement and boosting performance.

LIFT PEOPLE UP
Start by reinforcing your confidence in other people’s abilities. Employees immediately feel more confident and more motivated.

Today’s employees have endless options. They can freelance, contract out their skills to multiple companies, work part-time, and create an online business for next to zero capital. So remember to appreciate your employees as they have many other ways to earn a living!

The next generation of employees expects more from leadership. They want authenticity, connection, and a sense of purpose .

RESOURCES:

Leadership
This is How AI Will Change the Future of Leadership
The New Rules of Effective Leadership
Startups. Founding, funding, and beyond
The Most Important Leadership Skill

The post The Future of Leadership appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

The Digital Age has unleashed three powerful forces. Continuous change, pervasive innovation; and global markets, customers and competition.

So new leadership capabilities are required and innovation matters more than ever. Digital transformation is largely enabled by innovation, from building new products and services to leveraging data for more efficient operations.

Going digital, the focus for many companies today continues to demand the attention of leadership teams as they evolve to meet new challenges and expectations.

If innovation is to flourish, leaders must create an entrepreneurial environment in which everyone feels encouraged to experiment and where failure is viewed as something that can be learned from. Real leaders promote diversity, as innovation can come from anyone.

More than 70 percent of senior executives in a recent McKinsey survey say that innovation will be one of the drivers of growth for their companies in the next three to five years. Other executives see innovation as the most important way for companies to accelerate the pace of change in today’s
global business environment.

“Innovation leadership is a philosophy and technique that combines different leadership styles to influence employees to produce creative ideas, products, and services. The key role in the practice of innovation leadership is the innovation leader.”
–Wikipedia

In a recent in-depth study of leaders in the telecommunications industry, the Harvard Business Review isolated 10 distinctive behaviors that set this group apart as innovation leaders. Here are the bullet points:

1. Display excellent strategic vision. The most effective innovation leaders can vividly describe their vision of the future.
2. Possess a strong customer focus. Network with clients and ask incessant questions.
3. Create a climate of reciprocal trust. People are never punished for honest mistakes.
4. Display fearless loyalty to the company and to the project.
5. Trust in a culture that rewards upward communication.
6. Excel at setting goals. These goals require finding new ways to achieve a high goal.
7. Persuade. These individuals are highly effective in getting others to accept good ideas.
8. Emphasize speed. Experiments and rapid prototypes preferred over lengthy studies.
9. Communicate candidly, honestly and even bluntly.
10. Inspire and motivate through action.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists.
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.”
— Lao Tzu

More On This Topic:

How to become an innovative leader in the digital age
Leadership and Innovation
The Innovation Leader Your Company Needs Today

The post Innovative Leaders Matter appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

As someone once said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”!

The everyday happenings in a company’s culture matter and they can play a large role in the success or failure of every company.

Today’s millennials are the generation driving the workplace changes of the near future. They desire a strong company culture more than anything else when deciding who to work for.

Culture has always been important. But today, it’s becoming more than just a buzzword. It sets your company apart from the competition. It attracts the right talent and brings in the right customers.

If you don’t have a strong or appealing company culture, you will lose the recruiting war! Here are seven reasons why culture is essential to the success of your company.

1. Attracts and Retains Talent
   Employees’ skills may get them in the door, but your culture is what will keep them there. Just 36% of employees today are engaged at work, according to Gallup. Of course, employees who are not engaged do not do their best work and are at risk of leaving your company.
   
2. Assists with Onboarding
   Poor fit with the culture is the #1 cause of new hire failure. This is particularly the case with new employees who have put real thought into the type of culture they’re entering into.
   
3. Builds Brand Identity
   Culture is what makes your brand unique and gives it that special edge. The more your audience understands and identifies with your brand, the more they’ll want to buy from you.
   
4. Increases Loyalty Among Employees
   Culture gives employees a driving goal and purpose for what they do. It connects your leadership team with the rest of the employees and binds them with a set of shared beliefs. Your employees’ enthusiasm will be apparent to your customers.
   
5. Builds Community
   Good talent knows other good talent. When your employees are happy with their work, they are more likely to share with others. A strong organizational culture helps you keep your best people
   
6. Transforms Your Company into A Team
   A successful culture brings together the people at your company and keeps them aligned. The culture at your organization sets expectations for how people behave and work together.
   
7. Transforms Employees into Advocates
   Your people want more than a steady paycheck and good benefits. They want to feel like what they do matters. Your employees contribute to your company’s culture and live it internally and externally.
   

“A company’s culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur’s job is to build the foundation.”
— Brian Chesky, Co-founder, and CEO of Airbnb

“What my team and I learned is that culture is tangible, visible and definable. There are several key lessons our team learned that helped us bounce back from that challenging point in our company’s history.
To avoid making these same mistakes, keep an eye out for the following cultural faux pas and learn how to overcome them with a positive cultural shift.” — How Culture Saved Our Company After Nearly Killing It

The post How Corporate Culture Makes The Difference appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

All recruiters and HR managers strive to recruit the best candidates. A great hire can improve productivity, boost office morale, and positively impact the company’s bottom line.

But what is a bad hire? And how does it happen? Consider: Some candidates may misrepresent things in their resumes and applications. This can range from exaggerating educational or work experience to blatantly lying.

No matter how well you think you know someone, talking to the people he’s worked for in the past yields new insights and clarifies existing ones. References are invaluable free resources that prevent costly mistakes.

Costs of a Bad Hire

• Dampened Morale — Employee morale correlates with increased productivity, organization loyalty, and higher profitability. The wrong employees kill workplace morale.
• Increased Turnover — Every organization needs great employees. But there’s one thing which good employees can’t stand – that is having bad employees as their colleagues or managers. They’ll quit.
• Decreased Teamwork — Teamwork is critical to organizational success. Bad hires don’t work well with fellow employees.
• Decreased Productivity — Workplace morale and teamwork are critical factors for boosting productivity.
• Reputational Damage — A bad hire has a negative impact on employee morale and increased turnover will soil an organization’s reputation. When a company gains a reputation for hiring the wrong individuals, it will start having problems attracting top talent. A bad hire interacting with customers can damage an organization’s image to its customers.
• The Confidence Factor — When you hire and keep the wrong people, your team questions your ability to make smart decisions. No one is more affected by this than top performers.

Significant Financial Costs

Financial costs can vary widely depending on the position for which the hire was made. Estimates range from $7000 to $10,000 as the average cost of hiring the wrong individual for an entry or mid-level position. The cost of wrongfully hiring a manager can be in excess of $40,000.

While the financial impact is quantifiable, chief financial officers actually rank a bad hire’s morale and productivity impacts ahead of monetary losses.

Have you ever calculated your direct costs of replacing someone who shouldn’t have been hired in the first place? They include:

• Hiring (advertising, interviewing by human resources and management)
• Onboarding (training, management, and oversight)
• Lost productivity, engagement, opportunities and customers
• Hiring externally

It doesn’t matter if you are hiring an entry-level minimum wage employee or senior executive. The cost of a bad hire is significant and can bring down a team, a manager, or the entire organization.

While there are no guarantees, taking the time to cast a wide net and
doing your due diligence in selecting employees is well worth the effort and will minimize the chances of a bad hire.

“The toughest decisions are people decisions: hiring, firing, and promoting people. They receive the least attention and are the hardest to ‘unmake.” — Peter Drucker

The post The Real Costs of a Bad Hire appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

Seventy percent of financial services CEOs see the limited availability of skills as a threat to growth.

These days survival and success within this fast-changing marketplace demand people who are creative, digitally-savvy and can adapt quickly to constant change.

The Old Operating Environment

But few CEOs say they’re changing their focus on the skills and adaptability of their people. Companies in every industry usually have one thing in common. They hire for the operating environment that used to be. Talent is recruited for the world that was, not for the one that’s coming.

A new world is bearing down upon financial services. In no segment is this truer than in private-wealth management.

The question most hiring managers have failed to answer — How do I hire for a demographic that’s going to dominate my business for the next 30 years?

What follows is an overview of the new operating environment, the transformation already underway and the talent imperatives necessary to win in today’s world.

Click below on The New Imperative for Recruiting Talent in Private Wealth Management pdf to find out more and learn more.

The post The New Recruiting World in Private Wealth Management appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

A 3D printer can build a 400-square-foot house in a day. A robotic barista at a café can serve 120 cups of coffee per hour, and embedded sensors are helping government agencies prevent motor vehicle accidents on crowded roadways.

Welcome to The World of Disruptive Technology

Once considered too experimental, disruption tools now impact everyone in the organization from C-suite to project leaders. Executives are recognizing the power of these technologies to improve strategy and deliver a compelling competitive edge.

The key drivers for adopting disruptive technology include the ability to innovate, revenue growth and profitability, according to a Forbes Insights and PMI survey of 537 executives.

Cloud solutions are among the most popular disruptive technologies in the Forbes Insights survey. Cloud was closely followed by IoT (Internet of Things), artificial intelligence and blockchain.

Consider The New IoT Mousetrap

A tiny rodent no longer stands a chance against today’s pest control technician who used to slack off on tending to his traps.

German multinational company Bayer has almost replaced the technician with its Rodent Monitoring System (RMS), a wireless network of sensory devices that attach to a plant’s existing mousetraps.

When an RMS device captures a rodent, it automatically alerts a pest control technician via text or email, enabling a fast and efficient response. Mousetraps are now The Internet of Things devices!

Read the full report: “The C-Suite Outlook. How Disruptive Technologies Are Redefining the Role of Project Management” –  Download it below.

“Disruption is real, and it’s impacting even the largest companies that used to be the most stable in the world. Today, there are almost no barriers to entry in any industry. Anyone can be a competitor.”

The post Disruption, C-Suite & The Internet of Things appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

There are blue skies ahead for the asset management industry and asset managers. But, clouds are also looming.

The threat of disruption is imminent. Automation and robo-advisory offerings are commoditizing large parts of the business.

The quest for scale is likely to see a wave of acquisitions and strategic alliances with tech companies shaking up the market in the coming years. Changing demographics and markets will thrust the asset management industry to center stage.

The rise in the volume of investable assets is set to increase from around $64 trillion today to $102 trillion by 2020.

Inspired by platform models in other industries, clients are also advancing new demands regarding the immediacy with which they interact with their providers. At the same time, regulators are doing their best to prevent consumers from being sold inappropriate products, often the most lucrative for providers.

The result? Regulatory costs continue to climb while fees are falling and a battle rages over ownership of clients.

Fundamental drivers of the new asset manager are:

• A new emphasis on cost, scale, and efficiencies critical to global success.
• Economies of scale. Some global managers will become mega-managers.
• Fewer managers who rely on commissions. They will need to develop alliances with fee-only distribution channels.
• Large alternative managers will need to fund their expansion by tapping the capital markets, or through strategic relationships.
• The gap between specialist firms and mega-managers, who compete everywhere on everything, will widen dramatically.

The Future of Asset Management Talent

• Job seekers are no longer being asked to simply take standard data and analyze it better than competitors. Companies are now looking at the challenge of information itself – what to use, how to get it, and figuring out which questions it is best suited to answer.
• Technical skills are essential. Firms need people who can create efficient, scalable tools to organize and analyze data. STEM backgrounds and coding skills have long been critical attributes in research hires.
• Portfolio managers with expertise in investment and portfolio strategy across fixed income and equities will continue to be in high demand.
• Compliance managers and data specialists continue to be hired while regulations get tougher and investments in technology increase.
• If a volatile market prompts investors to pull their money, asset managers will face more pressure from competition.
• Asset managers will put attracting and developing talent at the forefront of their efforts to retain and enhance their
  competitive position.
• Across the firm, there will be the flexible use of technology allowing for economies of scale, specialization of needs and improved reporting.

Pressures on The Asset Management Industry

1. COSTS – Rising costs of complying with regulation and commercial cost pressures will as firms grow their distribution networks.
2. FEES – Fees will be under continued pressure amid the push for greater transparency and comparability.
3. TECHNOLOGY – Investment in technology and data management will need to be maintained or increased to drive customer engagement, data mine for information on clients and potential clients, operational efficiency, and regulatory and tax reporting.

What Are The Gamechangers in Asset Management?

• Regulation will hinder banks and insurers by forcing them to abandon proprietary investing and other core businesses.
• As the world ages, retirement and healthcare will become critical issues that only asset management can solve.
• Asset managers who are willing to see the client as their compass are set to thrive in this environment, while the rest are likely to face accelerating headwinds.

Conclusion

How do you know what you want to be if the vast majority of jobs that will be available in a decade or so don’t exist now?

In a job market where change is the one constant, and today’s knowledge may be tomorrow’s ancient history, how do you retain and even increase your professional value? The same way that enterprises remain competitive amid constant change:
By being adaptable.” – DXC.technology

The post The New Breed of Asset Manager appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

Strategies for Retaining Top Talent

We’ve heard a lot of talk about stagnant or faltering economies in the past few years. The digital revolution has brought with it a mismatch of skill sets and job openings, making it hard for people to find a job and for companies to keep top talent.

Employers around the world are still struggling to fill necessary roles.  According to the Talent Shortage Survey, 40 percent of global employers are not able to find the right talent for jobs that need to be done.

Salary, retirement plans and vacation benefits are high on the list of why great employees take the job, but they are not reasons enough to keep them in your company for the long haul. Job satisfaction will increase your employee retention rate. They need to feel that their contributions to the business are important. But the feedback and praise must be sincere. Top talent is smart enough to know the difference between sincere appreciation and platitudes.

The “lifetime employment” model is obsolete

In today’s climate, companies that want to attract and retain the best talent will look for the best ways to develop employees along the way. If that describes your company, you have to invest in people with the understanding that you’re going to help them grow professionally (even if you don’t retain their services).

With lifelong employee/employer relationships disappearing, the challenge today is to present your teams with a roadmap of exciting new things to take on and directions to explore, which can foster a longer-term outlook.

How large companies lose their top talent

• Big company bureaucracy is a common complaint of really talented employees. They don’t like rules that make no sense.
• Companies lack projects that will ignite the passion of talented people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world.
• Companies do an ineffective job at annual performance reviews. If you’re talented enough, why stay?
• Bosses fail to engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.
• Company execs fail to impart  insights/observations/suggestions. Top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountable for their projects.
• Your company is not open-minded. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. Many companies find opposing voices to their strategy an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a “team player.”

8 Strategies to Retain Talent

• Offer new employees training before their start dates. IBM is brilliant in this regard. Its Succeeding@IBM is a two-year course taken online that lets new hires in on what it takes to be successful at the company.
• Spell out for new hires a clear vision of what their next two to four years at your company will look like. Clarify exactly how you expect the employee will grow in that time.
• Look out for the welfare of your people by letting them leave earlier in the day! This will keep them productive, creative and loyal because they know you aren’t expecting them to sell their souls for a paycheck.
• Create an environment that makes your employees feel like an asset to your company. Let them feel secure in their job. Greet them by name, letting them know that you know who they are and what their contributions are to the company. Encourage goal-setting and let them make their own choices as often as possible.
• Be sure you have job descriptions so your employees know what is required of them.
• Create an open and honest work environment. Give feedback on work performed and be willing to listen, really listen, to the concerns of your employees.
• Provide opportunities to grow and learn, and let your employees know there is room for advancement in your company. Provide tuition for continuing education classes. Give challenging and stimulating work. Let them know what career development plans you may have for them and what opportunities are available for them to grow with the company.
• Recognize and reward good work. Monetary bonuses are always nice, but recognition of a job well done goes a long way to creating goodwill and loyalty.

The companies that have a hard time attracting top talent are those that can’t differentiate themselves in the market. If your company does something meaningful or novel, you will become a magnet for those truly talented people you seek.

If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.” – Stephen Covey

The post Saavy Strategies to Retaining Top Talent appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.

Diversity and inclusion are now a CEO-level issue around the world.

Corporate diversity and inclusion are now a CEO-level issue around the world. The diversity of perspectives, experiences, cultures, genders, and age are essential to the growth and prosperity of any company:

Why? Because diversity breeds innovation. And innovation breeds business success

Why has diversity and inclusion become so important?

Six business and cultural changes have come together to spotlight the importance of this issue in 2018:

1. Diversity and inclusion now impact brand, corporate purpose, and performance. Companies are starting to regard inclusion and diversity as competitive advantages, and key enablers of growth.
2. The global political environment has heightened employee sensitivity to diversity and inclusion.  Employees are personally concerned about what they read and hear, and they want their employers to offer perspective.
3. Many large organizations now define themselves as global entities, making religious, gender, generational, and other types of diversity a business reality. 
4. Research indicates that diverse and inclusive teams outperform their peers. Companies with inclusive talent practices in hiring, promotion, development, leadership, and team management generate up to 30 per cent higher revenue per employee and greater profitability than their competitors.
5. Issues of age and life transition are becoming more important. As the large Baby Boomer population ages, the need to broaden the focus on diversity and inclusion to account for the elderly in the workplace will increase.
6. In inclusive organizations, the way people operate will shift, and the everyday language of the business will change

What is diversity?

“Diversity” is generally defined as the mix of people, including differences in gender, race, ethnicity, national cultures, subcultures within countries, sexual orientation, disability, and age and generation. It also includes other differences such as service line, background or education.

“Inclusiveness” is about making the mix of diverse perspectives work – by teaming and
leading inclusively – to achieve better results. It is about creating an environment where each
individual feels valued, is valued, and inspired to perform at their best.

So why are so many FS organizations falling short on diversity and inclusion, and failing to broaden recruitment as a result? While employers tend to blame a lack of sufficient candidates,
employees point to the lingering assumptions and stereotypes so many women in financial services continue to face. Substantial progress won’t be made until these biases are rooted out.

Why Diversity Matters

McKinsey and Company’s latest research reinforces the link between diversity and company financial performance – and suggests how organizations can craft better inclusion strategies for a competitive edge.

Delivering Through Diversity

Diversity Trends: Old Rules vs. New Rules

Old models of diversity and inclusion are undergoing change, and this trend is expected to accelerate. Read More …

How To Hire A Diverse Work Force

1) Create Diversity Strategies That Work
Fill the talent pipeline with women candidates and keep the percentage intact as the pipeline matured. 

2) Hold Business Units Accountable
Diversity objectives need to be embraced throughout the entire organization. Require each business unit to have quarterly diversity events partnering with local diversity organizations.

3) Set Goals and Measure
Get results by setting goals for diversity and then measure and publicize the results.

4) Interview at Least One Diverse Candidate

Diversity recruiting often cites the Rooney Rule requiring National Football League teams to interview minority coaches which dramatically improved minority hiring. When a major technology company implemented “interview at least one woman” for a highly technical group, it doubled the hiring of women and women now represent 50 percent of this group.

5) Include Diversity in the Interview Panel

Interviewing can be subjective with people tending to hire candidates like themselves. An entirely male interview panel can easily include a female board member, Add different perspectives to the jury and listen to the input.

6) Introduce Diverse Role Models Early in the Interview Process

Clients have seen increased acceptance rates by diverse candidates when similar role models are introduced early in the interview process.

7) Improve Performance Evaluation Processes

Women are often evaluated as lower performers than male peers even when their performance is better. Companies should establish subjective performance reviews and provide equal career progression opportunities.

8) Create a Culture for Inclusion

A company’s culture can cause women to opt out of technical roles and companies. Companies need to diagnose their culture and get rid of these behaviours.

“Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.”
~ James Surowiecki

Resources

Diversity Trends for 2018

Gender Equality
Still looking for room at the top: Ten years of research on women in the workplace

How and Where Diversity Drives Financial Performance
Diversity is an issue of fairness and a driver of innovation and performance. This is a large, cross-country study into the relationship between multiple aspects of managerial diversity, the presence of enabling conditions such as leadership support for diversity, and innovation outcomes.

How To Alter Your Hiring Practices To Increase Diversity

The post Why Diversity Sparks So Much CEO Interest appeared first on Harrison, Stone & Associates, LLC.