HR Digest

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Reason being an ability to hedge their bets and get a foothold in diverse markets and manage risks better. A recent Gartner survey says that global M&A activity increased after the financial crisis, and many companies were nationalized to avoid failure.

Trends 105

Trends Chief Operating Officer Supply Chain Crisis 105

HR Digest

MAY 2, 2019

I was at a conference recently and one of the speakers remarked that “Culture hedges against the risk of uncertainty.” It can empower people to take a point of view and allow the organization to benefit from diverse points of view. That, I think gets to the heart of what the right culture can do. It can help them innovate.

Resources 40

Resources Human Resources Leadership Pipeline Learning-by-Doing 40

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 11, 2015

” But the only real wins are a victory for the hedge funds, and a Pyrrhic victory for GM in that it managed to keep Wilson off its board and reduced the size of the buyback from the $8 billion the investors had been demanding. During the bailout, financial firms, including hedge funds, were nowhere to be found. Instead, U.S.

Hedge 8

Hedge Company Automotive Restructuring 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 19, 2012

came home from her job as a diversity consultant at JP Morgan Chase. On this day, though, she had just been asked to describe the "business-case for diversity" for her firm. What, they asked her, was the most powerful argument for promoting diversity — outside of ethical and legal ones? He was dead serious.

Succession 17

Succession Diversity Open-book Innovation 17

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 12, 2012

Conglomerates are defended for their synergies, and for the benefits of diversity as a hedge against failure in one sector (though this argument is often oversold by management, since shareholders can diversify and thus hedge risk for themselves). But conglomerates are inherently more vulnerable than other companies.

Welch 8

Welch Diversity Hedge Chemicals 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2016

Hedge fund activist Bill Ackman posed that question recently in his fund’s annual letter to investors. Unlike high-profile activist hedge funds, which attempt to outperform the market, the primary goal of passive investors is to deliver returns that match a market index. laura schneider FOR HBR. It’s a really good one.

Hedge 8

Hedge Proposal Policies Influence 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2018

Most major producers with large balance sheets will likely hedge their bets and attempt both. These trends will require oil producers to shift their focus away from transportation and diversify towards innovative petrochemical products to capture market share in diverse end uses such as clothing and construction materials.

Offshoring 10

Offshoring Price Transportation Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

JULY 12, 2016

Ask someone to name the demands that activist hedge funds make of companies and they’ll likely list corporate governance issues like board changes and executive compensation, or perhaps some form of restructuring. Paul Garbett for HBR. This data suggests the need to rethink how we view investor activism.

Proposal 8

Proposal Short-term Advertising Hedge 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 16, 2013

The firm also estimated that more than a hundred hedge funds have now migrated into the activist camp. Even Microsoft is soon to have a hedge-fund activist, ValueAct Capital Management’s president G. Law firm Wachtell Lipton identified 27 activist-investor initiatives in 2000, but more than 200 in 2013. Mason Morfit.

Hedge 8

Hedge Sharpe Short-term Active Listening 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 11, 2014

When pressed, Owens tried to hedge his answer, but the media portrayed him as calling the President a liar. An unintended consequence of increased diversity at the top is that there are far fewer “strong ties” between powerful leaders. We found quite the opposite in our research on leaders.

Ethics 8

Ethics Hedge Diversity CEO 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

Yet a vast body of research now points to the import of contemplating diverse, dissenting views. Or are you actively signaling that you want to hear views different and diverse and in opposition to your own? On Facebook we defriend those with different political views to our own. On Twitter we follow people just like us.

Consensus 9

Consensus Hedge Diversity Stress 9

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

Yet a vast body of research now points to the import of contemplating diverse, dissenting views. Or are you actively signaling that you want to hear views different and diverse and in opposition to your own? On Facebook we defriend those with different political views to our own. On Twitter we follow people just like us.

Consensus 9

Consensus Hedge Diversity Stress 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 23, 2012

You want diverse, even opposing viewpoints. I once heard David Modest, a former partner in the infamous hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, attribute the unraveling of LTCM to exactly this: a few very certain, very loud partners had been able to override the more tentatively stated doubts of the rest to steer the firm into oblivion.

Management 10

Management Risk Management Competitive Intelligence Hedge 10

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 23, 2012

Dig deeper and you'll find that the diversity of views usually corresponds with how executives frame the problem. These moves require limited investment while providing critical hedges against unexpected changes in the marketplace. Heins needs to pay attention up front to defining the challenges carefully.

Strategy 14

Strategy CEO Strategic Planning Consensus 14

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 18, 2013

In terms of sales volume, product line diversity, operating system flexibility, R&D spending, and even customer loyalty , Samsung has emerged as a fierce competitor that has bested former industry champions like Nokia and Apple. Samsung is now the undisputed leading vendor of mobile handsets and smartphones.

Brand 8

Brand Customer Loyalty Hedge Wilde 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 17, 2013

An increasing number of critiques have been mounted in publications as diverse as The New Republic , The Weekly Standard , and Wired (to name only a few) based on charges of sexism, conspicuous consumption, inequality, and an attitude toward government and social problems ranging from naivete to disdain.

Venture Funding 8

Venture Funding Entrepreneur CRM Hedge 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

I would advise moving beyond simplistic categories of value investor versus growth investor, or hedge fund versus pension fund and focusing instead on what we at McKinsey & Company call 'intrinsic' investors — those who truly invest based on a deep understanding of company fundamentals. Often they will clash, sometimes fiercely.

Long-term 8

Long-term CEO Short-term McKinsey 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 5, 2014

The first-ever cyber-commencement address given by “ Rossum ” — a machine intelligence running a $22 billion hedge fund—to the graduating class of a top-tier technical university somewhere in America before the year 2030. . I computationally, if not quite emotionally, understand your fears.

Biotechnology 9

Biotechnology Technology Class Hedge 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 6, 2016

The normal culprits for short-termism are short-term-minded hedge-fund managers and activist shareholders, as well as CEOs worried about big bet investments with uncertain paybacks. The diversion of cash from investment slowed long-term strategic success. Eventually, the company’s share price nosedived.

Long-term 8

Long-term Incentives Short-term Management 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

As prominent hedge fund manager Bill Ackman told me, “When I graduated from business school I thought business was about making money and philanthropy was about doing good. Now I think both can be used as methods for changing the world.” ” Sir Ronald Cohen, the father of British venture capital, agrees.

Learning Curve 8

Learning Curve Hedge CEO Education 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

I would be an advocate if you’re going to have an education, then have it be a pretty diverse education so you’re flexing lots of different muscles. There are some issues where you just don’t have a good answer and you have to hedge your risks as a business and not pretend that you’re more certain than you really are.

Mentor 19

Mentor Career Uncertainty Learning-by-Doing 19

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

We rightfully add safety systems to things like planes and oil rigs, and hedge the bets of major banks, in an effort to encourage them to run safely yet ever-more efficiently. The reasons are rooted partly in the pernicious nature of complexity, and partly in the way that human beings psychologically respond to risk.

Banking 8

Banking Crisis Hedge System 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 8, 2012

To start, the board should ensure that the compensation committee is suitably independent and diverse so that its members will be attuned to sentiments on pay inside and outside the firm. In Sweden, most institutional investors take advantage of opportunities to sit on the nominations committee of investee companies. Boards of Directors.

Execution 10

Execution Committee Incentives Hedge 10

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Your network’s strategic advantage and, therefore, the extent to which it helps you step up to leadership, depends on three qualities: Breadth: Strong relationships with a diverse range of contacts. Breadth: How Diverse Is Your Network? Dynamism: A dynamic set of extended ties that evolves as you evolve.

How To 8

How To Diversity Letter Learning-by-Doing 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2011

And functionally, there is no longer a need to ration financial resources; there's more money available than can be productively invested—which is why the financial industry is only minimally about investing, and all about flipping, swapping, hedging, engineering, and other forms of lever-pressing.

ROE 12

ROE Debt to Equity Ratio Innovation Incentives 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2017

That is like setting up a finance organization to do exotic risk hedging before putting in place basic reporting and compliance. No board would allow a finance function to focus exclusively on investor reporting or risk hedging, but this type of mistake is all too common when it comes to HR.

Compliance 12

Compliance Hedge Human Capital Finance 12

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2017

The four-story glass building designed by Norman Foster seamlessly integrates a long and diverse list of technical achievements — from the enormous solar panel array on the roof to hidden cable management mechanisms at the workstations — all according to Jobs’s uncompromising design standards. It is not a hedge.

Real Estate 8

Real Estate Technology Hedge Project 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2017

To appreciate how significant simply identifying an ethical dilemma is, consider the choice of Rajat Gupta, the former managing director of McKinsey & Company, to call a billionaire hedge fund trader after a Goldman Sachs board meeting. Even at the most senior levels of the organization, independent directors struggle to dissent.

Ethics 8

Ethics Training Biotechnology Morale 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

They have multiple ways of thinking and doing things, which not only serve as a hedge against change but also form the substrate for experimentation and learning. They learn and evolve by leveraging diversity in the face of change. They buffer against unexpected events. Modularity. Adaptation. They ask, “What if X happened?

Strategy 10

Strategy Uncertainty Long-term Politics 10