Hot-Button Management Issues

While governance and fiduciary matters command a bigger share of their time and attention, the hiring of CEOs is among the most important, value-added responsibilities of Boards of Directors. It is also one exercised ever more frequently, with statistics showing that two-thirds of all venture-backed start-up companies replace their founding CEOs and of these replacements, two out of every five fail in the first 18 months.

A recent article chronicling Google’s spectacular success highlights the company’s ‘over the top culture, including bathroom stalls with Japanese high-tech commodes and heated seats ….. each stall features a geek quiz that changes regularly and asks technical questions about testing programming code for bugs. The toilets reflect the company’s general philosophy of work: generous quirky perks keep employees happy, working hard and thinking in unconventional ways’.

The peculiar way we select out political leaders - The federal Liberal Party will soon elect a new leader. The contest is intriguing as it marks the first instance in many years in which there is no clear favorite among the many contenders. While the process by which party delegates will render their decision is well publicized, the criteria they will use to make that decision is not.

Avoiding the Deadly Trap - Part I of the discussion on the Founder Syndrome introduced the entrepreneurial heroes who conceive and give birth to organizational life. It described the complexities and contradictions of these larger than life individuals as well as their challenges in the face of changing organizational landscapes and investors intent on minimizing risk.

Why it's still a big messy issue and why attitudes have to change - It has been debated for years yet remains a small-talk favorite around the water coolers of the venture capital industry. It is “The Founder Syndrome” and it goes something like this…..founders innovate, incubate and invigorate. They are the life-source of entrepreneurial endeavor.

Canada abounds with great entrepreneurs for whom succession is the most significant future threat their companies will have to overcome: Magna's Frank Stronach, Roger's Ted Rogers, Bombardier's Laurent Beaudoin, Four Season's Isadore Sharp.

You hear the word 'certainty' a lot these days. Hockey fans were deprived of their favorite pastime for an entire season as NHL owners and players waged labor war on the issue of 'cost certainty'. In the United States, the 'politics of certainty' has become one of the defining dictums of the post 9/11 federal administration.

She had graduate degrees in business and management science, including one from MIT. She progressed rapidly and consistently over a 16 year period through the sales and marketing ranks at AT&T. She helped lead the spin-off of Lucent Technologies in 1996. In 1998 she became president of Lucent's global service provider business and set it off on a 'bold new course'. In 1999, at the age of 44 she was appointed the first outside CEO in the history of Hewlett Packard.