Leadership happens in groups, as does most work. Without followers, who and what are we leading? As such, leaders must understand what groups need if they want to maximise performance. While most leaders should be familiar with the idea of executive coaching on an individual basis, they may know less about the benefits of group coaching.Much of individual performance is influenced by the context, and so efforts to improve performance…
The consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) and retail industries are entering an era marked by a focus on growth and a search for value. The past decade has been particularly challenging, with population growth slowing and consumer attention fragmenting. To respond, companies must push an ambitious dual agenda, as McKinsey outlined in a recent article. They need to find new pockets of growth through portfolio management and enhance capabilities to improve performance. This…
The juxtaposition of these two opposite trends produces a rather specific effect: countries, their elites, and even ordinary citizens are trying to find some kind of solution that would allow them to at least look into the future with relative confidence, without constantly looking back in anticipation of some kind of nastiness. The search for such a solution is further complicated by the fact that the world is in dire…
In an era characterized by an overwhelming influx of new product launches and constant, in-your-face advertising, the concept of underconsumption has emerged as a compelling countertrend. Underconsumption – broadly defined as the practice of using fewer resources and making more deliberate purchases – is gaining traction in the beauty industry, influenced by social media dynamics and the evolving preferences of Gen Z consumers. As influencers and social media have historically…
Scott Graham, Unsplash In 2016, the Defend Trade Secret Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836 (the “DTSA”), passed Congress and went into effect. At its heart, it effectively codified the Uniform Trade Secrets Act at the federal level, creating a federal cause of action. Prior to the enactment of the DTSA, a large body of federal common law had developed around the remedies available to a plaintiff after a defendant allegedly…
Quick Hits OFCCP recently released a new construction scheduling letter and itemized listing, corresponding frequently asked questions (FAQs), and a renewed and revised Form CC-314, for covered construction contractors to notify OFCCP of new federal or federally assisted contracts or subcontracts in excess of $10,000, also known as the Notification of Construction Contract Award Portal (NCAP). But the agency has more in store for construction contractors. On September 30, 2024,…
Quick Hits Employers may not inquire about an applicant’s conviction history before the applicant is determined to be otherwise qualified for a position, except when required by local and federal law. Employers are barred from asking, seeking from any source, or using as a factor in determining any condition of employment information regarding an applicant’s criminal record until the applicant has been given a conditional offer of employment. In the…
By Robert Fernando CFA | 09 Sep, 2024 The usually quieter summer months for financial markets stirred to life with concerns over central bank policy, a slowing US economy and corporate earnings guidance.The fall in equity markets during mid-July spilled into early August and by the 5th, the S&P 500 index was down 10% while the more global MSCI World equity index was down 8.5%.However, markets recovered during the month…
For many people with cancer, IV infusions of chemotherapy are their best chance at a cure. But these infusions can be inconvenient or inaccessible to patients, and some complications arise not from the active drug itself, but the infusion. Turning these drugs into pills could be transformative. In a study published in Nature Communications on Oct. 1, a team of researchers led by Mark Smith, the director of medicinal chemistry…
Quick Hits Documenting both the business reasons for a RIF and the objective criteria used to select employees for termination is crucial to mitigating the risk of discrimination claims and other legal challenges. Employers may want to note the various federal and state legal requirements, such as the WARN Act and any applicable mini-WARN acts when planning and executing a RIF. According to recent figures released by the U.S. Bureau…
MOLLY WOOD: Juan, thanks so much for joining me. JUAN LAVISTA FERRES: Thank you, Molly, for the invitation. MOLLY WOOD: So when you think about the reason you have the Microsoft AI for Good Lab, what would you say is the high-level mission? JUAN LAVISTA FERRES: So our mission is to help the world with AI, help organizations around the world on some of the world’s greatest challenges. We are not experts on…
An overview of Google Research and why research is having ever more real-world impact.
This commentary was adapted from episode 147 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry. For most of the 21st century, there have been 10,000 to 50,000 pertussis cases every year in the U.S. Pertussis, also known as whooping cough for its characteristic hacking cough followed by a whooping sound, is a vaccine-preventable illness that causes its most severe…
Tucked into page 59 of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a short but consequential section titled “amortization of research and experimental expenditures.” It changed how companies operating in the U.S. are taxed for their spending on research and development. Before the amendment, they could deduct 100% of R&D expenses every year; after the change, this deduction was spread over five years, which would ultimately make R&D more…
On December 23, 2022, President Biden signed the “James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023” which, among many other things, amended Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, 12 U.S.C. Section 1829 (FDIA), to reduce hiring barriers across the financial services sector. As a result of this “Fair Hiring in Banking Act,” the category of crimes for which a financial institution can outright reject a…
Quick Hits A female employee was not entitled to an “all the way to the top” compensation adjustment in a gender discrimination case, where the comparator was the highest-paid colleague worldwide, a German Regional Labor Court ruled. However, the female employee was awarded higher remuneration in accordance with the discrepancy between the medians of the comparison groups of men and women. The court determined that the discrepancy between the employer’s…
Exports from Vietnam to the United States have grown significantly since America’s trade war with China began in 2018. At the same time, Vietnam has been importing more Chinese goods. This has led many to question: is “Made in Vietnam” really “Made in China"? Not as much as the public would think, say Ebehi Iyoha and Jaya Wen, assistant professors at Harvard Business School. By one broad measure of products,…
Digitization, rapid advancements in AI technologies, and slower gains in power usage efficiency have significantly escalated the demand for data centers, with major implications for global power market dynamics. In Europe, demand for data centers is expected to grow to approximately 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, up from 10 GW today. To meet this new IT load demand, more than $250 to $300 billion of investment will be needed in…
Indonesia, which has tens of thousands of islands and archipelagos, has been known for hundreds of years as a maritime country. Indonesia's geographical position in the tropics, located at the crossroads between two continents (Asia and Australia), and two oceans (Indian and Pacific), certainly has economic potential and presents strategic opportunities related to the development of the marine industry which, if explored, can become a national economic strength. The commitment…
If you have an ambition but no plan behind it, you’re probably not going to get the results you’re looking for. According to recent McKinsey research on the UK economy, the highest-performing UK companies have grounded their ambitions in a set of five conditions—looking at investors, incentives, sources of growth, partnerships, and people. And the results speak for themselves. On today’s episode of The McKinsey Podcast, senior partners Andrew Goodman and Tunde…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series Patrick George/Ikon Images Purposeful play is a critical behavior for executives facing disruptive change. In good old-fashioned play, the goal isn’t to win or lose. It isn’t to achieve against an objective standard. It’s to have fun. To experiment with different approaches. To see what feels good and what…
What You Need to Know: Governor Newsom recently signed new laws – SB 1105 and AB 2499 – which extend and clarify employees’ available reasons for use of California paid sick leave (PSL). The changes go into effect on January 1, 2025. As we previously detailed, at the end of California’s 2023 legislative session, the legislature significantly expanded the state’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (HWHFA), primarily by…
Quick Hits As Election Day—Tuesday, November 5, 2024—draws near, employers are considering their leave obligations. Various state, local, and municipal election-related laws have implications for multistate employers’ compliance plans. Notice posting and political speech laws also have implications for employers’ compliance plans. Leave Obligations There are three key issues employers may need to address when considering voting and election leave—posting notices, types of leave, and requests for leave. Posted Notices…
To grasp the future of business, look to AI-native organizations: from processes to products, these companies are infusing every facet of their operations with AI. In a previous newsletter, I wrote about common ways that AI natives work differently. Today I’m zooming in on one company I find particularly compelling: Supernatural AI, a 30-employee creative agency that’s inventing a more efficient, strategic way of doing business. Founded in 2021, Supernatural…
Millions of Americans, from hourly retail staffers to corporate vice presidents, wrestle with the demands of work while parenting young children, caring for a sick spouse or aging parent—or both.That juggling act is made even tougher by rigid practices and rules set by employers, such as inflexible or unpredictable work schedules, and employers’ failure to grasp how employees are struggling and to provide them with support, according to a new…
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.What keeps capital project leaders awake? Ishaan Nangia: What we hear consistently from capital project leaders is that there is a huge amount of value attached to their capital management system. Between 2022 and 2027, about $130 trillion of capital will be spent, and that’s almost a 70 percent increase compared with the previous five years. Our research suggests that most large capital…
Thirty years ago, I graduated from college, got my first job in software sales and was given three things: a $1 million quota, a CRM and a (desk) phone. Fast forward to 2024, that same new graduate entering software sales would get the same $1M quota. But he’d also get a mobile phone, a CRM, an avalanche of tools like LinkedIn for social selling, Slack for internal collaboration, DocuSign for…
A review of the last few quarters, in which economic activity has slowed while continuing to grow Economic activity continued to grow in France in second-quarter 2024 but slowed slightly, up 0.2% in volume (qoq) after a 0.3% increase in the first quarter. However, the drivers of this growth proved rather disappointing, with foreign trade and government spending once again playing the starring role. In contrast, household consumption expenditure struggled…
Political and business media, pundits, and experts continue to cite prediction market odds as a credible forecast for the upcoming presidential election, regularly pointing to betting odds on prediction markets such as Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, and Interactive Brokers as a guide to who is up and down in the horse race—but that is a big mistake. It appears few journalists, pundits and experts have dug deep into how these prediction…
Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the world’s most renowned psychologists, died Oct. 14 in his home in San Francisco. He was 91. Broadly, Zimbardo’s research explored how environments influence behavior. He is most known for his controversial 1971 study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, with W. Curtis Banks, Craig Haney, and David Jaffe. The study, intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment, revealed the shocking extent to which circumstances can…
24 October 2024By Matthias RumpfPeople have tended to be quite hesitant to trust banks abroad. That seems to be changing. In a post featuring interactive charts for you to explore, The ECB Blog shows that cross-border bank deposits of private households have picked up recently. To what extent are euro area households making use of cross-border deposits? Are households in smaller countries more likely to open accounts abroad and, if…
Latest research has revealed a “positive association” between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.* Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at…
Rising uncertainty surrounding future electricity demand could affect Europe’s energy transition and power infrastructure investment plans. Governments and system operators have projected that power demand in major European countries could increase by as much as 7 percent per year to 2030 after two decades of relative stagnation. In McKinsey’s Global Energy Perspective 2024 report, the Continued Momentum scenario projects growth to be only slightly above 2 percent CAGR. Further McKinsey…
Two incidents involving the detonation of communication devices, the liquidation of the Hezbollah Secretary General, and the IDF's operation Northern Arrows most aptly reflect the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border over a period of just over a month. Against this background, the "historic" agreement on the demarcation of the maritime border, signed two years ago and designed to pave the way for reconciliation between the two warring states, has remained…
At a glance Arenas are a unique category of industries defined by two characteristics: high growth and dynamism. They capture an outsize share of the economy’s growth, and the market shares of players within them change to an outsize degree. We have identified 18 potential arenas of the future that could reshape the global economy, generating $29 trillion to $48 trillion in revenues by 2040. These arenas range from AI…
Topics AI in Action This column series looks at the biggest data and analytics challenges facing modern companies and dives deep into successful use cases that can help other organizations accelerate their AI progress. More in this series Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images USAA, a 102-year-old financial services company with a strong focus on military-affiliated and veteran customers (whom the company refers to as “members”), is not new to…
Quick Hits On November 1 and November 2, Mexico celebrates Día de Muertos, but this festivity is not considered under the FLL as a mandatory holiday. Under certain circumstances, November 1 and/or November 2 can be deemed as mandatory rest days. Día de Muertos Is Not a Mandatory Holiday As mentioned above, November 1 and/or November 2 are not established in Article 74 of the FLL as mandatory holidays that…
Writing in the journal Science Robotics, the research team, led by the University of Cambridge, outline how ‘palaeo-inspired robotics’ could provide a valuable experimental approach to studying how the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish evolved to support weight on land.“Since fossil evidence is limited, we have an incomplete picture of how ancient life made the transition to land,” said lead author Dr Michael Ishida from Cambridge’s Department of…
If you’ve ever been bothered by the feeling that your friends have more robust social lives than you do, you’re not alone. Lots of people feel that way, and, mostly, they—and you—are right. For decades, social scientists have recognized what’s known as the friendship paradox, which says that on average, the friends of any given individual have more friends than the individual does. But even if the phenomenon isn’t good…
Quick Hits Key steps for managing a data breach incident include understanding what constitutes an incident, applying the organization’s framework and policies, and effectively communicating with the organization’s privacy officer and employees. Additional measures include promptly and proactively managing data breaches and reviewing and updating policies. The effectiveness of HR’s response to a breach of employee data can greatly influence employees’ confidence in the organization’s commitment to data privacy. 1.…