The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies- 8: Tencent

Data Parsing Led to Mixed Messages

This article in many ways is a cautionary tale about Big Data. While Big Data can be used to uncover insights, by its very nature of being “big” there’s also the possibility of misreading or misinterpreting the story behind the numbers.

Slice and dice the data one way and you’ve got one set of conclusions. But slice and dice it another way and another, very different story is told.

It really is up to those of us in Finance to be honest brokers. That means looking at the data from all sides, perhaps acknowledging different interpretations of the same data, and weighing in on why we’ve drawn the conclusions we have.

Let us know what you think!

5 Personalities Your Company Needs

It’s natural to hire like-minded people. But by doing so, you might be missing crucial ingredients for your company’s success. Typically, leaders think to build teams based on job title: CTO, CMO, VP of Engineering, Director of Sales. While functional leadership roles must certainly be filled, slotting talented people into an org chart will never unlock your company’s fullest potential. By thinking of your team only in terms of roles, you risk building a group with homogeneous cultural attributes. This [...]

The Higher You Are, The Less You Know

Executives may be brilliant strategists. But strategists need foot soldiers to carry out tasks. The higher the executives are, the less they can know about what is happening. Yes, there can be summarized reporting and executive scorecards and dashboards. But monitoring the dials is not the same thing as moving the dials.

What strategies are most useful as performance improvement levers?

Driving Growth: The Female Economy in China and India

It should be clear that female consumers cannot be ignored if a company hopes to succeed in China and India over the next ten years. As the governments of both countries improve the lot of women—by ensuring higher literacy rates, equal access to educational offerings, a better range of jobs, a greater political voice, and overall parity both in socioeconomic opportunity and in status—there will be powerful new waves of consumer spending. The new female consumer, contributing in an unprecedented way to the rising economies of the world’s most populous nations, will stimulate extraordinary growth in these two countries—and in the companies that serve them.

How to Deal With Chaos: Grow Up

“We have what we call rainmakers and implementers,” [CEO of W.L. Gore, Terry] Kelly explains. “Rainmakers come up with wild ideas, implementers make them real. The two drive each other crazy. If you’re not careful, control will gravitate to the implementers. So we try to protect the rainmakers. That means we have to be comfortable with more chaos.”

How Does The Cleanliness of Money Affect Our Spending?

New study shows when dirty money is more likely to stay in your pocket.

With the rise of credit cards, PayPal and other ways of transferring cash electronically, real cash-money is in decline. Like CDs and books before it, the folding stuff looks certain to be another victim of technological advances.

But not just yet.

What Leaders Can Learn from Wild Animal Trainers

A command and control leadership style may have its time and place. But at the negotiation table? You may find concession-making skills will work more in your favor. When I last spoke with negotiation expert George Kohlrieser, he eloquently compared the delicate dance between an animal trainer and animal to managing concessions during negotiations. Concession making can be material or it can be in the relationship. If we’re in a heated debate in negotiation and you suddenly answer my question or [...]

History’s Most Famous Serial Career Changers

The average worker today will change jobs about seven times over the course of their career, but few will go so far as to change their line of work entirely. Historically, people have been even less inclined to take the risk of a complete career revamp, often working one job their entire lives. But some of history’s boldest and most dynamic figures shared a common willingness to abandon one career after another, either in the search for their true calling or a simple inability to focus their interests on one particular area. Such famous people are proof that there’s no shame in being a perpetual career changer.

Who are these top serial career changers you ask? …