Robert Crouch

Companies are being overrun by automation tools. Dozens of vendors offer systems to automate various tasks and business processes, and countless companies have developed their own tools. Many of these tools are growing and overlapping; this is called “automation sprawl.” There are several ways to get sprawl under control. One is to create a classification system for different automation types and how you will use them. Another is to create a dedicated organizational team to help business units and functions figure out what type of automation tool best fits their needs. However a company manages automation sprawl, it’s important to let employees know what the plan is for these technologies, to alleviate fears that automation will take their jobs.

Companies want employees to share what they know. Research has found that this leads to greater creativity, more innovation, and better performance, for individuals, teams, and organizations. Yet despite companies’ attempts to encourage knowledge sharing (think of those open office spaces), many employees withhold what they know. They may play dumb, pretend not to know something, promise to share something but never do it, or tell people they can’t share when in fact they could. New research finds that the way jobs are designed can affect whether employees share or hide knowledge from their colleagues. More cognitively complex jobs — in which people need to process large amounts of information and solve complex problems — tend to promote more knowledge sharing, as do jobs offering more autonomy. By focusing on these aspects of work, managers can encourage employees to share more and hide less.

Virtually every organization has a few superstars. They’re the employees who’ve fast-tracked their way to the C-suite or maybe they don’t sit at the top of the hierarchy, but they are definitely part of the tacit power structure within the organization. Generally, they’re well regarded, highly respected and seem to have an X factor that propels them to succeed….But how do they achieve such success? What is it that they do differently? Is there a specific set of skills they possess that others don’t?

When firms do a good job, it’s often with senior hires. This makes sense to a point, given the potential impact of higher-level executives, including the costs of underperformance. However, as roles across organizations become more complex, the competition for talent more intense, and the consequences of poor onboarding better understood, more firms are taking comprehensive looks at their policies and practices in this area.

Adaptive flexible teams can much better address the variability and unpredictability of events that occur. Leaders typically take five actions to enable these teams to succeed. They communicate — even overcommunicate — the strategic ambition to a broader range of people. They serve as coaches, not commanders. They strengthen lines of communication among the teams. They accelerate learning loops, emphasizing progress over perfection. They shift measurement and reward systems to larger teams.