Wednesday, 01 September 2010

TrendWatcher: The Corporate Ying and Yang of Social Media

by David Wentworth from i4cp

David Wentworth

With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media technologies virtually omnipresent lately, it's not surprising that many managers are wondering how to leverage these tools. Sales and marketing were the first to exploit these technologies, which present new ways of reaching customers. But the real trick is finding ways to improve productivity, collaboration, communication and learning within organizations using tools that increasingly look like mainstays rather than fads.

It turns out that not many companies have figured out this trick yet. According to The Rise of Social Media, a report that the American Society for Training & Development commissioned from i4cp, less than 20% of employees are using social networks, wikis, blogs, podcasts or shared media for work-related learning often or all the time. Fewer than 10% are using micro-blogs (Twitter, Yammer, etc.), virtual worlds or augmented realities to the same extent.

Stay Tuned... Our exclusive interview with David will air Thursday!

Leadership Agility - i4cp

Monday, 19 April 2010
Achieving High Performance with Leader Athletes Written by Mark Vickers from i4cp Mark Vickers Today's elite athletes are performing at levels few can hope to achieve, yet with each race, each competition, they consistently demonstrate the capacity to push themselves and reach heights once thought unobtainable. In the business world, it should be the goal of every leader to emulate world-class athletes. This is a reachable objective and we see examples of exceptional adaptability and agility as chief among common traits shared by leaders of high performing organizations. Outstanding leaders have traditionally been associated with coaches rather than athletes. They guide, teach, motivate and inspire. But they are not usually thought of as demonstrating the dynamic, heroic effort of sports figures in the course of leading companies. But that's changing quickly. The ability to recognize and anticipate the next challenge is the hallmark of many great athletes. And there's a certain attitude that goes with agile athletes. They thrive on change because that's where they excel. "Agile leaders aren't afraid of change - they embrace it rather than try to manage it and they encourage those around them to do the same," states i4cp's CEO Kevin Oakes. "It really is about being fearless, and some leaders are better at this than others." i4cp's research indicates that the agile athlete is an apt metaphor for what it takes to execute strategy that results in success. In partnership with Prof. Bill Joiner, co-author of the book Leadership Agility, i4cp conducted the Organizational and Leadership Agility survey in February 2010, finding that the agility of leaders seems to be strongly linked to organizational performance.
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Succession Planning: i4cp

Monday, 19 April 2010
Don't Plan Succession, Manage It TrendWatcher: Written by Mark Vickers from i4cp Mark Vickers "Succession planning" is not just a flawed term, it's based on a flawed business paradigm. In fact, thinking of succession in terms of just "planning" is among the top reasons most organizations perform poorly in this area. Consider this: Improving Succession Plans: Harnessing the Power of Learning and Development, a major new study published by the American Society for Training and Development in partnership with i4cp (and free to members of both organizations), shows that a mere 14% of respondents describe their organizations' succession planning efforts as effective to a high or very high extent. In other words, most think their company's efforts are mediocre or worse. So, why are so many study participants - there were 1,247 usable responses to the survey - so cynical about the effectiveness of their succession planning programs? The answer is simple: It's because organizations are coming at the issue from the wrong direction. They too often assume succession is a planning process rather than a crucial dynamic management task that must be integrated with the rest of the talent management system. Yes, succession management should have a planning component. After all, the study shows it's a future-looking process in which the top two goals cited by respondents are to "identify and prepare" future leaders and to "assure business continuity." But many companies focus only on the identification part of the process rather than on the preparation part.
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