Attracting and retaining top performing executives is the true lifeblood of successful organizations, yet identifying and attracting them can be a challenging endeavor.

Top performers, in leadership roles, will deliver about 50% more than the average and will improve their organization’s competitive position. Yet, according to McKinsey, 82% of Fortune 500 executives don’t believe that their companies recruit highly talented people.

There are many reasons organizations do not target A-Level talent: lack of resources, concern about internal pay inequities, lack of managerial confidence, chemistry/fit, etc.  However, organizations of all types, must strive to both attract and retain talent that will improve their competitive position. 

Specifically, organizations must develop and embrace a strategy that supports the hiring of talented executives.  They must live the concept that a rising tide floats all boats…that to win in the market they must accept new ideas, concepts, and recruit and retain top talent.

So how do you find and recruit “A” Talent? 

Speaking from experience as a member of a global executive search group, identifying “A” talent is best accomplished using a disciplined process that must include four tangible measurements.

When incorporated into the executive search process, the following will facilitate an organization’s ability to identify and attract best-in-market talent:

1. Determine Current Organizational Position/Potential

Often, the assumption is made that because candidates have worked for top performing competitors (or academy companies such as GE or P&G), that they are automatically a top talent.

With the cost of a mis-hire being more than 4x annual cash compensation, this can be a costly assumption. Once you have identified potential candidates, but before you contact them, recruiters should speak with knowledgeable sources such as alumni of their company and competitors.

These pre-references will ensure a consistently higher level of candidate quality and help determine fit to the new organization.

2. Ensure a Progressive Career Track

Ensure that the candidate has had progressively more responsibility throughout their career.  Has he/she made the appropriate decisions including agreeing to take on risky and more autonomous roles within their current or prior organizations?   Has he/she stayed in roles long enough to deliver consistent and high-level results?

Have job/company changes been made to further the career in terms of scope and responsibility, or just for more money? Is the candidate a job hopper, never staying with the same company for more than 2-3 years? 

3. Assume that Compensation and Talent are Linked

Compensation levels often reflect the quality of the candidate. This is a basic and irrefutable law of our open market economy. Top talent commands top dollar, and quality candidates are typically compensated at a higher level than their peers.

While there are obvious exceptions, this is true over 80% of the time. For example, a General Manager making $200,000 is more than likely a stronger candidate than a comparably experienced one making $125,000.

Keep in mind that “A” players are well compensated and their respective organizations will fight hard to keep them with rich, comprehensive, and long-term packages. It will typically require a premium to pry them away.

4. Senior Level References

After the initial references mentioned above, subsequent references must be conducted with senior line management highly familiar with the candidate. Most senior level executives will readily agree to be a reference for an “A” talent executive. Because of their rank and experience, they are the most candid and useful references.  

In closing, identifying, attracting, and retaining “A” talent is not an easy task, yet is paramount to the success of almost any organization.  While using these measurements will result in improved talent levels, they are not the only components of an overall recruitment plan.

For ultimate success in the market, management must commit to identify and hire individuals who will challenge them to take the business to the next level. 

Organizations must commit to a strategy of hiring the best person for the job, not the best person looking for a job.

About the Author:

Walter is a Managing Director with Cornerstone International Group, a leading Global Executive Search Firm.  He is a former member of the Americas Council of the AESC. Based in Atlanta and Washington, DC, Walter has over 25 years of retained search experience. He can be reached at walter-baker@cornerstone-group.com

Is your career suffering from being too busy?

There is a lot to say about being busy. Some good, some bad. But the important thing is to recognize a difference between being busy and being effective.

Being busy is not contributing. Sometimes too much activity results in lower performance and not accomplishing your goals.  

The last year has been full of change. None more so than the workday most of us keep.  Working from home has become the norm; most of us will soon have a scenario that will include some mix of working from home and working from the office. Change once again.

There is a lot to do. In fact, I know people who are working regular 12 hour days just to keep up. 

That’s a formula for failure! 

I’m not talking about time management.  I’m talking about about prioritizing. Knowing what is important, and making certain you accomplish it. Positioning yourself to thrive going forward. Making certain you are not too busy to be successful.

Too often we get caught up in things that have to be done. There are always things that have to be done — that’s our job. And it gets busier every day. If some people rely on you today, more people will eventually do so tomorrow.

You get busier as you help more people. That’s where the issue lies. You take care of things; you help others; you make certain everything is done right. You are busy doing. You don’t say no.   

At the end of the day (or week or month) you realize that you have ignored things that fit into the category of “the future”. This could include allocating time at work to plan, to understand  the challenges and develop a way to overcome them. It could also be something personal – learning, developing, serving, or even relaxing.

Whatever it is, it did not get done because your schedule did not have time. In special situations that may be ok, but in the long term, both you, those that count on you, and your organization, suffer.

Each of us has a limited supply of time. We also have the power to determine how to invest it. Those who don’t take this seriously give up potential, and maybe aspects of their future, by only addressing immediate demands. That’s an expensive trade off, and leads to stress, dissatisfaction and disappointment.

Know what is important by prioritizing, for today and the future, then make it happen by allocating time in your schedule.

In a recent article, Inc.com shared “the 80% energy rule”, based on the Confucian teaching hara hachi bu, which is often translated as “eat until you are 80% full”.  Use 80% of your energy each day, leaving time and energy for whatever else comes up.

Don’t max yourself out in all aspects of your life – and career. Have some reserves. The challenge going forward is not returning to normal, but rebuilding for greater resilience. Don’t be busy, be successful. 

These suggestions will help focus on things that you consider important:

1. Set aside one hour each week for “planning.”  That’s your hour. Use the time to consider the longer term – not to solve immediate issues. Focus on what you choose – business, personal or a combination. That time is yours.  
2. Write down what you want to accomplish (a study from the Dominican University in California found that people who wrote down their goals were 42% more likely to achieve them. If you share them with someone else, that percentage goes up dramatically. That’s where coaches can help.)  
3. Set a “time to accomplish by” date for each.
4. Celebrate each success.

These are simple steps which take discipline. They take focus. They take commitment. And they take prioritizing.  It’s your time. Protect it jealously. Use it wisely!

You are an executive search professional.  Your job is to find exceptional people who can lead an organization out of one of the most disruptive periods in recent history and into a new period of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity – and opportunity.

What exactly are you looking for? Learning agility ?  Innovation? Confidence?

“Resilience,” says Alejandra Aranda. “Companies are experiencing a scenario of forced transformation. Change was underway, but the pandemic has trashed timelines.  Until we catch up, the key strategic concept is resilience.

“You do not want to get stuck in the business model that made you successful.”

Aranda is Co-Founder and  Chairman of Humanitas, Cornerstone’s member firm in Santiago, Chile. She is currently heading up a search for new Directors of the Penson Fund Administration in Chile, a global leader of social security in pensions.

To transform the business model requires a Board of Directors and an administration that speaks that language. It‘s complex. We have to generate leadership capacities in the different layers that foster the relationship between the Board of Directors and the company’s management.”

In a recent interview with the Chilean daily La Tercera, Aranda addressed the necessary characteristics identified by the Pension Fund Administrators for the Directors being sought.

 “First, we are looking for adaptability and flexibility, the ability to think differently and quickly. Leaders must grasp the need to reinvent themselves, assess and diagnose the risks,”she explained.

“In this particular case, we must also look for awareness of the social role of the company.  We need an understanding of the impact that decision-making within the Board of Directors will have on the well-being of the people and the development of the country”.

Go here to read the full interview in English

So, you want to become a Board member? Here’s the bottom line.

If you do it well, being a Board member will be more work than you anticipated;  more responsibility than you may have understood; a bit more frustrating than you expected; and a rewarding joy and a privilege.

Board service is a real job — a serious commitment.  Your passion for the organization must be greater than just wanting the title of Board member. Passion is the #1 ingredient when organizations are inviting people to know and do more for the enterprise.

Know exactly what you are coming for. Don’t join a Board because you want to feel powerful. You can be powerful somewhere else. This the wrong place. 

Many organizations look to expand and diversify their Boards in order to bring in more and different perspectives to support their businesses.   This creates opportunities for  some people who may not have been thought eligible for such a seat.

A job title is often an entry point to being considered as a Board member.  But it is – and should be – more a matter of the qualities and experiences you bring to the table. This should include a mental transition to awareness of your responsibilities, rather than to your new seniority.

If you have decided that participation on a Board is for you, here are some starting points

• Work your network. This is how you will learn about Board opportunities and how companies will learn about you. Build your personal brand as someone who will provide real value and expertise to a company through Board membership.
• Demonstrate financial intelligence. One of the most effective ways to assert leadership is to accept responsibility for P&L or to learn how one group’s costs and revenue relate to the rest of the organization. It’s also important to understand business in general outside your own organization.
• Develop intercultural intelligence. This is more important than ever to the overall health of an organization. It means no group should be a silo. Make sure that you’re participating in initiatives across your company, your industry or even your ecosystem, to stay looped in on current trends. See my article on Intercultural Intelligence.
• Use social intelligence. Talk to people! Talk to people throughout your organization, your ecosystem, but especially those who already serve on the Board. It is about learning from others.

Think about what kind of Board member you would be. There are a few different archetypes of Board member styles.  You are likely to come up against at least one or more of the following types. 

The Enforcer: This person is the stickler for the rules, making sure the organization is complying with rules and regulations while trying to build strategy and increase revenue.

The Data Wrangler: there’s usually at least one of these on any given Board, and in today’s data-driven workplace, this person fulfills an essential role. Focusing on KPIs, metrics, performance, and predictive analytics can help guide organizational strategy.

The Legacy Builder: this Board member focuses on the long term, how organizational decisions and strategy lay the groundwork for the company’s future, beyond current concerns. This requires balancing immediate operational and market needs with investing in the future.

The Big Picture Assembler: this is the person who sees what information, data, and feedback are coming in from different parts of the organization, and then looks at it holistically to see how the company is doing in the grander ecosystem or sector.

The Diplomat: this is the person who tries to balance the voices and needs of all the different members, making sure that each team or representative gets heard.

There are others. If you are on more than one Board, chances are you’ll meet them all

NEXT STEPS

Target your favorite companies and think above all about how you can help them; your focus is on their need, not yours. Build your ecosystem credibility. If you have it, your voice will be even more powerful from Day 1.

Don’t forget that your authenticity is always checked.  If you want to be up front and say what you hope to get out of the experience, go ahead. But make sure you are being honest.

And then, take risks.  Train yourself, don’t be afraid to make mistakes.  Ask sharp questions, and openly debate new ideas. Don’t shy away from uncomfortable discussions.  Be humble and grateful for support and never apologize for who you are. 

Have passion, open doors.  And become the Board member they were hoping for!

A majority of the world’s wealth is created by family owned businesses.

Estimates suggest that these businesses — majority owned by a single family — may contribute over 70% of the world’s GDP.  They deliver a superior return on assets in the U.S. (+6.5%), even more in Europe (+8%).

But the current economic stress created by the coronavirus pandemic has exposed fault lines endangering continued prosperity and growth in the sector. 

Nowhere is this of greater concern than In the Middle East, where family business groups contribute 60% of the GDP and, according to a recent PWC survey,  where a whopping one Trillion USD is expected to be transferred to next-generation family members over the next 10 years.

Let’s take a closer look.

THE CHALLENGE

Navigating in times of adversity calls for leadership resilience, organizational creativity, and alignment behind new strategic objectives. Downturns such as we are currently experiencing are times when a company can try new things to stay relevant to a changing world.  

However, some family businesses are missing out on opportunities during these times of colossal consumer behavior shifts, due to few old habits. Here are two.

First Fault line: micromanaging

Regional subject matter experts suggest that governance in some family businesses needs further improvement. A common challenge is when family members or some of the board members are micromanaging the CEO or other C-Suite officers.

This results first in the latter ineffective utilizing their competencies in driving Business Plan execution or defining future strategy. Second, If this reputation becomes attached to the company, it may prevent it from attracting top-caliber CEOs and C-suite members. Third, corporate culture is impacted, and promoting relationships over merit can affect critical decision-making during TUNA (turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous) times.

That results in a specific breed of leaders that survive in some of these groups, where they execute more often the wishes of others rather than by taking advantage of their valuable experiences and leadership skills to guide the company.

Second Fault Line: Risk Aversion

Some regional family groups tend to embrace a more conservative strategic outlook moving forward. According to Hofstede (a global scholar on national cultures), countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) tend to score high in risk-averse ratios. Add to this the fact that many family businesses in the GCC are in traditional sectors such as distribution, retail and real estate and only a small number has explored opportunities in the new economy (e-commerce, cybersecurity, digital payments, digital health, biotech, streaming subscription media, etc) they find today themselves in a difficult spot.

STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE: 

Key strategic objectives for a family business to amplify its state of resilience and achieve sustainable results could include the following:

1. Sustainable Growth: Achieving healthy finances is a two-way key success factor. In our opinion designing the right strategy forward and having it executed in a robust manner, can affect the outcome of sustainable growth. One core pillar to design and execute a business plan is having the right people on top. An organization can have the best product/solution in the market, the best business model, and the best business plan but without the right leadership to execute it and a vigorous culture; there will not be sustainable growth.

   Investing in top senior talent is a critical component for any type of company to achieve sustainable results. But will top talent work for a family group where pockets of the above two mentioned “derailing” habits still exist? Most probably not. 

   So the first key question here is how to attract the right talents moving forward. The second question is how to nurture, assess, reward, and retain top talent.

2. Effective Governance: Transitioning to a more corporate-run model for the family business means “Chinese walls” between Board, Family, and Top Management to avoid bad decision-making, micromanagement, and other patterns detrimental to business continuity. 

   The CEO, supported by the C-Suite, designs a sturdy strategic foresight and executes effectively the Business Plan, while the role of the Board is to direct them to become the best they can be. The Board participates in the conversation to enable the CEO & C-suite to design an effective strategy and efficiently execute the strategic objectives and actions.

3. Business Continuity: It is a more difficult task for some traditional businesses to navigate within a contemporary global economy. The key question is how to digitally transform the traditional business, and foster a culture of innovation in the family business. 

   The challenge is how to engineer that when older generations might not have the capabilities (technical knowledge and right behavior) to drive such a vision and empower the CEO into the new future.

4. Effective Succession and Control of Business: Develop well-fit G2 or G3 members by reinforcing their capabilities (both technical, leadership, and behavioral in the new norm) to succeed G1 and assume ownership responsibility for the legacy business. In summary, some key objectives for the G2 and G3 family members could be exemplified as follows:
   1. Growth: maximizing financial value,
   2. Liquidity: better cash flow,
   3. Control: keep with ownership and avoid outside equity or debt

THE WAY FORWARD: 

Inability to tackle decisively the previously mentioned “fault lines” could have a detrimental effect on the continuation of any regional family business; especially after the recent gigantic changes in consumer behaviors, that were augmented by the global pandemic. 

We strongly believe that securing top senior talent, forgoing the micromanaging tactics, and fostering a more innovative culture by the board and/or family members, could safeguard a better future for the family business.

A critical fix here is to design a robust succession planning blueprint for the family. Informed/educated owners should hire board members and non-executive directors based on merit, not on family relationships, and then a stalwart board will hire a good-fit CEO to lead the firm to the next level. In summary, the board’s fiduciary duty should be to elevate top management to the next level rather than to micromanage it.

In Cornerstone International Group (Middle East Practice) we have a solid senior team with more than 100 years of leadership experience in the region, to effectively design a dedicated succession planning model. Our certified master coaches (ICF) can augment the capabilities of the G2/G3 members: we are highly competent to assess and identify their potential and conduct a training needs analysis.

Second, we have excellent project management skills in executing one- or two-year succession planning programs and effectively mentor and navigate family members during these turbulent times.

Finally, understanding shifts in consumer behaviors and realigning leadership doctrines with new behaviors is a critical tacit knowledge that we have developed in Cornerstone Middle East, so to be able to recruit the right-fit senior talent for the family groups.

Last week our Life Sciences & Health practice hosted a global webinar on the current status of the coronavirus pandemic. Medical scientist Dimitri Lavillette explained the incredible advances of immunization in using your own  body as a bio-lab in the development of a vaccine – within a single year.

Dr. Richard Jones looked at a different challenge: where do we go next?

Dr. Jones is the South-East Asia Regional Director of International SOS, the world’s leading medical services and security provider employing about 5,200 medical professionals.  His clients are corporates who are flooding him with calls asking how they vaccinate an entire workforce and where they go after that?

There is no easy answer, no one size fits all.  Last Thursday, the global roll-out of Covid vaccinations looked like this:

• 6 vaccines approved for full use
• 21 candidate vaccines in final stages
• 75 vaccines in clinical evaluation
• 78 vaccines in preclinical evaluation.

This shatters previous records of response in a medical field accustomed to producing at most half a dozen different vaccines for a given disease. But getting these candidates across the finish line is just the first part of the challenge. The extent of current vaccination programs, as measured by doses  administered,  varies hugely across the world from total coverage (100%) in Israel, 60% in UAE and 10 other regions squeezed in between 2% and 35%.

Big picture? 1.1% of the global population has been fully vaccinated. 6% of the global population, 120 million, has been infected.

Globally, the recovery is all over the place. Developed nations have the jump on vaccine production and distribution.  Even within one socio-economic stratum – think USA – we have huge imbalances between the infection-free population and those spreading infection.

Which is why there is a heated debate going on right now in terms of when and how to identify the “infectiousness” of each group with some form of vaccine passport

The freedoms available to each group are radically different.  If you are an infection threat you must be socially isolated to protect others.  If you are not,  should you  still have to be under the same restrictions?  One, it is not fair.  But more important, you are needed in society to help the economy and social normalcy to recover.

International SOS, the organization Dr. Jones belongs to, is primarily a provider of health insurance. A major client is the airline business and international companies with interests all over the world whose success depends on mobility. International SOS has developed Covid passports which are issued to travelers as proof of vaccination they are no longer an infection threat.

Denmark will roll out a digital passport soon and IATA has also developed one to help its airline members.  IBM has developed its own Digital Health Pass that would allow access to a public location such as a sports arena, university or workplace.

With the uncertainty of mutant strains and variants threatening the duration of the pandemic,  some form of status verification or passport would seem inevitable.

There is pushback from the guardians of personal freedom who fear yet another separation of the haves and have-nots,  but the concept of vaccine passports will be hard to work around.  The pandemic may not be the worst/widest in history but it is massive. Only 10 countries on the planet have not reported Covid cases and eight of them are islands in the South Pacific.

Which of course begs the final question on  passports,  on whose authority can we count? Who will produce a digital document unanimously acceptable and accessible?

As they say, good luck with that.

The first case of infection from the Covid-19 virus was recorded in China in mid-November 2019.

Since that time this tiny virus has been responsible for infecting 115 million people in 219 countries and taken the lives of 2.6 million. Six weeks ago, infections reached a peak with 1,723,209 new cases in one day.

Covid has disrupted settled human existence in virtually every corner of the planet. One week ago, the total number of students closed out of schools worldwide was 1.38 billion.

The bad news: it’s not over. The good news: it could have been a lot worse.

This Thursday, Cornerstone’s Life Sciences & Health practice will host a webinar discussing the most remarkable aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic: the speed with which is it being brought under control.

Only two things stop a pandemic. It loses steam when the target population becomes so heavily infected there is nowhere left for the virus to continue growing. In the old days, a pandemic was over when there were no people left to infect.

The second weapon is a vaccine.

Vaccines as a disease fighter date back two hundred years but with dubious efficacy. Milestones have been few and far apart because vaccines are incredibly difficult to develop. It took 28 years to find a vaccine for chickenpox.

Within 15 months, according to the WHO, several vaccines are in use, 50 candidate vaccines are in clinical trials, six vaccines in China and Russia have been given limited approval and three have been given Emergency Use Authorization by the US Federal Drug Administration and are already in distribution to 1.5 million people per day.

According to historians, the Covid-19 pandemic is the most destructive in a century. If, in fact, we are finally turning the corner, it will no doubt go down in history as one of the most amazing victories of modern medical science.

Don’t miss the webinar

Thursday, March 11 at 0900 EST.

 You can register here

 

Anne de Landsheer is a specialist in Intercultural Intelligence – a vitally important aptitude for executives and scientists working across borders and cultures.  Her previous post is Are You Measuring Intercultural Intelligence? .  Here, she speaks with writer Joan Miller.

 

MILLER:    Anne, how do you assess the ICQ of an executive level candidate? Are there specific tools or instruments you use?

DE LANDSHEER:        This question is about the way that each recruiter manages candidate interviews, considering the position and the core competencies it requires.

First, how could we assess that if we do not know our own “intercultural level” or ICQ? That is why at Peak Lifecycles HR,  (Cornerstone’s member in France) we decided to be trained and certified to know exactly what “cultural competency” means for each of us, in order to well understand what it means for others

As recruiters, we need to be sensitive to the mindsets people have, and we must be able to give fair and “compliant” feedback – that is, feedback that is delivered in an ethical way.

We use a specific Intercultural Quotient Assessment that is powerful and internationally recognized for improving intercultural effectiveness: it provides one of the largest datasets on intercultural competences worldwide.

The assessment helps to better understand how a person currently approaches intercultural interactions, what she does well and what she may find difficult. It identifies the intercultural competences she can develop and train, with four main dimensions and 24 cross items, including:

• Intercultural Sensitivity: How aware are we of different perspectives and signals?
• Intercultural Communication: How well do we adapt how we communicate across cultures?
• Building Commitment: How capable are we of bringing people together around shared goals?
• Managing Uncertainty: How well do we deal with the uncertainty of intercultural interactions?

Measuring the cultural quotient has become such a crucial prerequisite for recruitment success that we have taken this extra step and also developed a gamified assessment for the recruitment of corporate leaders with diverse teams.

That is what we assess in the general context. But in case a candidate (M/F) needs to know his “cultural profile” enabling him to discover which culture he is the most at ease with, and compare it to another specific one, we also can use a survey that will help people avoid cultural pitfalls that may arise when dealing with people born and raised in other cultures. This tool is used particularly in an ex-pat project

 

MILLER:  Is an assessment of ICQ important even for roles that don’t require working across international borders?

DE LANDSHEER:      Even if you are not working in an intercultural context, you will find that the competencies described here are essential for executives and teams to turn the challenges of their complex and changing business context into opportunities for innovation.

Intercultural competency is part of a global interview that we assess as soon as a candidate will have to deal with otherness, which is not only interesting but also a potential barrier. Another competency example is Leadership (representing the majority of the first requests for the jobs we recruit in Executive Search). That means that we have to assess the way a candidate actively influences the social environment, integrating different people and personalities, which requires cultural awareness

This also means that we need to understand the degree to which a candidate takes an active interest in others, their needs and perspectives (the candidate’s cultural sensitivity), how he or she relates it in his/her communication (culturally aware communications), and so on.

So: Intercultural Intelligence goes beyond purely geographical criteria. Companies have cultures which are often very distinctive; a person joining a new company spends the first few weeks deciphering its cultural code. Within any large company, there are sparring subcultures as well; for “trivial” and well-known examples: the sales force versus the engineers or researchers, and the marketing managers versus regulatory people.

We clearly see that intercultural assessment should systematically be part of any recruitment interviews for corporate leaders.

Considering a true, complete recruitment interview, the facts are that we don’t have to assess only two or three competencies but how people will be able to “cross manage” several ones. An assessment of ICQ is too often forgotten, done poorly, or misinterpreted.

 

MILLER:    At what point in the recruiting process do you like to perform an ICQ assessment? Is it part of the initial screening or is it part of the final candidate evaluation?

DE LANDSHEER:   I enjoy this quote from Peter Drucker: “WHAT managers do is the same the world over. HOW they do it is embedded in their tradition and culture.”

Persons with a low degree of behavioral flexibility always act in the same way, even in situations when they meet persons from other cultures. They are unable to consider different alternatives of action in a situation.

They will not deviate from a previously determined behavioral procedure. An inflexible person will not notice the negative effects of their own behavior on others. Thus, they cannot adapt their own behavior to specific situations or take on types of behavior from others.

In interaction with people of other mindset, ideas, way of working, etc., it is not possible to achieve goals effectively without taking into consideration the behavior considered ‘normal’ in the immediate environment, and the expectations one’s partner has of what ‘good’ behavior is.

It is therefore necessary to be flexible and to a certain degree able to adapt to the immediate environment to achieve cooperation and understanding: that is also intercultural “intelligence.”

That is the reason why we recommend an ICQ assessment as soon as a profile will have high-stakes interaction with any interlocutor. Because each of us is unique, there will always remain differences.

We use it once we have validated the hard skills background, that is to say for the second step of our assessment about “soft skills”.

 

MILLER:  Can ICQ be nurtured and developed through coaching?

DE LANDSHEER:    Specifically in this situation: persons with a low degree of tolerance for ambiguity experience unstructured and ambiguous situations as unpleasant and threatening. They either try to avoid such situations or to get out of them as soon as possible. If this is impossible, they feel visibly uncomfortable, misinterpret unclear situations, and simplify ambiguities

When trying to solve such problems, they often neglect a part of the problem and search for simple solutions. When confronted with contradictory and ambiguous opinions, they search for a compromise and prefer a very clear and definite way of proceeding.

This is the main “lack” that we want to develop and, yes, it can be improved through Intercultural coaching.

Cybersecurity is no longer a niche issue for tech companies. With our growing reliance on online platforms, it’s very quickly becoming a priority for everyone — one that could bring about serious threats to national security if not taken seriously.

Case in point: In March 2018, the City of Atlanta faced a widespread ransomware attack that crippled critical digital systems, including their police department, judicial offices, and their payment processing databases. The cybercriminals responsible demanded $51,000 worth of Bitcoin, or they would delete all the data they acquired.

Take note that this occurred long before the pandemic took place, meaning we’re more reliant on data now than we were at the time. That only makes us even more vulnerable to cyber threats.

And when it comes to the business sector, executives are a prime target for cybercriminals. They typically have more access to company data than the average employee and their devices likely hold confidential information and valuable trade secrets. Executives face more cyber threats than other employees, which is precisely why they need cybersecurity training.

Cybersecurity, an Integral Part of Company Culture

In the digital age, no-one’s data is 100% safe. If left unprotected, cybercriminals could either steal it or, worse, use it against you. It isn’t enough for there to be technical cybersecurity measures in place. Employees across the board must also be aware of the risks, and this can be ensured by cultivating a culture of cybersecurity in the company. One way to expedite the process is to begin with yourself.

Corporate executives who have a solid grasp of cybersecurity concepts can help instill a strong cybersecurity culture in the company. It encourages employees — not just  those in the IT department — to take the initiative. And when the whole company understands the importance of cybersecurity, data protection becomes much more manageable.

Cybersecurity Training Options

Another way to cultivate a cybersecurity culture is to implement training programs for employees across the board. Employees and executives alike benefit from learning the basics, but executives should always make an effort to learn more.

You can hire a C-level cybersecurity professional who can hold in-house workshops. But this can prove difficult, given the current shortage of cyber professionals. Another option is to tap into third-party cybersecurity companies that specialize in training in the business sector. They offer various programs ranging from simple lecture-style briefings to interactive, incident response exercises.

Executives serious about building their cybersecurity credentials — as well as those working in particularly at-risk industries — can also consider university-level training leading to an online cybersecurity degree. The courses let learners complete coursework 100% online through virtual labs that pull case studies from the latest business headlines.

Moreover, being online and flexible means that these courses can be done alongside a busy job. As a result, executives come out of the program with real-world training in offensive and defensive cybersecurity, and ready to face the challenges that lie ahead in the cyber business landscape.
Both before and after these training programs, it would be wise to hire a third-party organization to assess the state of the company’s cybersecurity. These organizations can assess cybersecurity using both qualitative and quantitative measures — from gauging the technical measures to interviewing regular employees about their cybersecurity knowledge and practices.

Doing this gives executives an unbiased perspective of their security measures, allowing them to recalibrate as needed. It is vital in building a secure database and a healthy cybersecurity culture in the company.

The view of earth from the International Space Station, 400 km up, is stunning.  You can’t help wondering if you can see all the band-aids.

Our poor, bruised planet and the people who live here have survived one of history’s more trying years. The worst pandemic in over 100 years has affected over 200 countries and cost two million lives.  Raging bushfires devoured Australia and the US West. The steady increase in natural disasters included a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season, flash floods, earthquakes, typhoons and volcanic eruptions.  Few people will recall 2020 fondly.

But many, it would seem, face the future with hope.

Ever year at this time we invite our members to submit an assessment of how they see the coming year in their country or region.  Our members are in 37 countries around the world, nearly all of which have taken a beating in 2020.

National metrics have always included GDP (Gross Domestic Production) and now include deaths from Covid-19. The GDP number has been inevitably negative, for Covid positive.

But our people out there unanimously feel the corner is being turned as Covid numbers shrink and the GDP grows. Most spectacular of all is Asia.

Today we are launching our 2021 Outlooks, which will be published over the next few weeks.  We are starting with Asia because that’s where the good news can be found.

The star performer is China, which has been on an amazing growth trajectory for several years. In 2020, it was the only major economy to record positive GDP year over year — +1.9%.  IHS Markit forecasts growth of 7.5% this year. Only India can top that, coming in at 8%.

You can read a summary of regional expectations for Asia here, authored by Cornerstone CEO Simon Wan who is based in Shanghai. National Outlooks available today are for China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

On Monday we will publish Thailand, Singapore and Japan.