Excerpt from A-CHIEVE! (May 2011)

UNLEASH CREATIVITY | MOBILIZE TALENT | CAPITALIZE ON COLLECTIVE INTELLLIGENCE

“…while businesses have traditionally managed their workforces with an eye toward operational efficiency, they have not necessarily done so with the creativity, flexibility and speed to capitalize on the growth opportunities that spring from an ever-more dynamic global marketplace.”

Working Beyond Borders, IBM Study, 2010 | Summary Insights from 700 organizations across 61 countries

We thank companies like IBM who have the capital and reach to conduct expansive and thoughtful global surveys and share results with us so we can leverage their work within our own organizational microcosms. Unfortunately, great surveys like “Working Beyond Borders” come and go with little fanfare because we read a title, and in our age of information overload, quickly decide “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me and my organization because:

• We don’t have a global footprint 
• Our industry and culture are unique
• We’re just fine the way we are
• The study is ‘blue sky’ thinking
• IBM is just trying to sell their services”

– when, in fact, the over-arching concepts apply to each and every one of us. Even more ironic, the study’s first of three challenges – cultivating creative leaders – defined as “nimbly leading in complex global environments”, speaks to our inability of being open to then creatively translating (connect-the-dots between) high-level concepts, trends and statistics into goal-driven, realistic and practical strategies and tactics that scream competitive advantage, unique differentiators, exceptional results, continuous improvement and marketplace relevancy. We love studies like IBM’s because we are anecdotally seeing and experiencing within small, mid size and large organizations, exactly what the study’s 707 Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) and Workforce Strategists are seeing and experiencing across the globe. So what are the “top 3″ challenges and how can they be remediated?