Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Leadership and teaming skills are front and center in times of rapid change. Meet today’s constant disruption head on with expert guidance in leadership, business strategy, transformation, and innovation. Whether the disruption du jour is a digitally-driven upending of traditional business models, the pandemic-driven end to business as usual, or the change-driven challenge of staffing that meets your transformation plans—you’ll be prepared with cutting edge techniques and expert knowledge that enable strategic leadership.

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BT & DTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VOL. 16, NO. 1
  

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Last week, in Part I of this Advisor, I discussed important changes I saw happening in the Hadoop/Big Data world in order to accelerate enterprise adoption of the technology (see "Big Changes on the Horizon for Big Data -- Part I").

"My job is to get people to work hard."

That's how Manager Mike characterized his role. And that's how many managers see their roles. It's not surprising, since many traditional management practices aim to extract maximum individual effort -- to get people to work hard, as Manager Mike put it.

"Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!'"

Implementing an agile product development process has many challenges. One that is not regularly addressed is who will lead each of the Scrum teams. Many organizations default to the seemingly obvious answer of the Scrum Master. Often ill-defined (even with "certification"), this role is essentially the agile version of the project manager. But agile teams are supposed to be self-organizing, leaving project managers (who don't contribute in other ways) largely useless.

For the past year and a half, much of the hype surrounding Big Data focused on the technological aspects of Hadoop.

Early in 2012 my 12-year-old son ran down to my office after getting home from school and said, "Hey, Mommy, did you know that Walmart can tell when you're pregnant? And so can Target! Even before anyone else knows! They got a girl in trouble when they sent her dad coupons for baby stuff and congratulated her!"

Early in 2012 my 12-year-old son ran down to my office after getting home from school and said, "Hey, Mommy, did you know that Walmart can tell when you're pregnant? And so can Target! Even before anyone else knows! They got a girl in trouble when they sent her dad coupons for baby stuff and congratulated her!"