by Gayle Hilgendorff
Have you ever noticed how, when you are on the precipice of doing something new, different or risky in your life, people respond by shrugging their shoulders and claiming, “Yeah sure, why not? What do you have to lose?”
Many times while coaching clients to do something new or different in their daily routine I notice myself asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Continue reading
The most motivated and productive people I’ve seen recently work in an older company on the American East Coast deploying innovative technology products to transform a traditional industry. To a person, they look astonished when I ask whether their dedication comes from anticipation of the money they could make in the event of an IPO.
Newcomers and veterans alike say they are working harder than ever before. Their products are early stage, which means daily frustrations as they run through successive iterations. Getting them to market demands more than corporate systems can handle, so they must beg for IT upgrades, recruit and budget themselves, and even take on sales responsibilities to explain innovations to customers — which adds to the workload. So much pressure, yet they don’t seem to care about the money? Continue reading
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ”
At ISSG, we’re curious to know how this proverb applies to executives as they look to bring in new talent – and think you might be too! To explore how perceptions, values and worldviews influence hiring decisions, we are planning a series of blogs/interviews with Senior Executives who are thought leaders in the areas of Talent Acquisition, Career Development and Leadership.
Here are the types of questions we’ll be asking:
Our objective is to provide you with a unique opportunity to gain insights from Senior Executives – and a platform to get a little visibility yourself!
If you have a question that you would like answered, or would like to be one of the folks we interview, please let us know by submitting your ideas to: SURVEY
by Gianpiero Petriglieri
One late afternoon last spring I received a visit from a former student and budding entrepreneur. I usually schedule these meetings at the end of the workday. It feels like a treat, witnessing aspiration and insight blend into leadership to create something new.
Luis (not his real name), however, had not come to see me for leadership advice. He had come to pitch his tech startup and ask for my involvement. Continue reading
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Corporate CEOs who exhibit narcissistic personality traits are more likely to embrace discontinuous or disruptive technologies than their less narcissistic counterparts, according to research by Donald Hambrick of Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and colleagues from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and IMD International.
The researchers describe discontinuous technologies as “contradicting the prevailing mindset in an industry, rendering existing organizational structures and processes obsolete, and diminishing the value of existing knowledge.” As such, existing firms are often seen as resistant, based on the risk and the high level of resources that would be needed for implementation.
But not all existing firms eschew adoption of these technologies, according to the researchers. Their study shows that CEOs with narcissistic personalities are more likely to take the associated risks. The researchers examined investments in biotechnology made by large pharmaceutical firms from 1980 to 2008 and found considerable support for their hypothesis.
Narcissism, as a personality dimension on which everyone can be arrayed, refers to traits such as a “strong sense of superiority,” a drive to “dominate their environments,” a “high degree of restlessness,” a “lack of empathy” and a “strong need for attention and applause,” the researchers wrote.
CEOs who exhibit more narcissistic traits, then, are seen as more likely to adopt discontinuous technologies for several reasons. Their sense of superiority gives them the confidence to take big risks. Their tendency toward restlessness makes them more open to change — even the radical sort that discontinuous technologies can bring. And they lean toward more dramatic decision-making with the understanding that their bold moves will garner attention among peers and in the press.
To this, researchers add two moderating factors: audience engagement — “the degree to which observers view a domain … as noteworthy and provocative” — and managerial attention — the level of focus that a firm’s senior managers place on a certain phenomenon.
“Bearing in mind that audience enthrallment with a technology can ebb and flow, and envisioning that managerial attention to a technology can similarly rise and fall, we anticipate that the narcissistic CEO will press for more attention at those times when a respected audience considers the technology as provocative and noteworthy,” wrote the researchers.
“CEO Narcissism, Audience Engagement, and Organizational Adoption of Technological Discontinuities” appears in the June 2013 issue of Administrative Science Quarterly. In addition to Hambrick, who is Smeal Chaired Professor of Management, authors include Wolf-Christian Gerstner and Andreas Konig of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Albrecht Enders of IMD International.
Source: Penn State University News
