Problem: Sleep Deprivation. Solution: It Depends

Sleep deprivation does look to be a very serious problem in the workplace, as it's costing companies $63.2 billion in lost productivity among its sleepy workers, according to Harvard Medical School. This article - Go Ahead, Hit the Snooze Button - does a good job of describing the organizational impact of sleep deprivation and companies' responses.  The figures are staggering, indeed.  

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But, at the same time, it's terribly incomplete. In what way? It covers very little, if at all, of the nature and causes of sleep deprivation. To implement a costly and time-consuming solution, companies ought to be certain that they've fully understood why their workers are sleep-deprived and that their solutions are indeed targeted to their varied reasons.

Forbes' Most Powerful Women Offer Gems of Insight

From Oprah Winfrey to Meg Whitman, from Ann Curry to Arianna Huffington, and many more, this short video is full of insightful gems.  For example, from Whitman:

Have the right person, in the right job, at the right time, with the right values and behavior ... The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. 

A Balancing Act for Leaders

Leaders, like everyone else, are only human. They may be heads of countries or multinationals, but they're all prone to the best and the worst of being human. But while I agree that it's quite fine to show frustration, uncertainty or weakness - all of this is inevitable, of course - on balance leaders have to show good control, strength and knowledge. Balance is the key, I suppose, but where this balance lies depends on each leader's preferences, situation and staff.

Reference:  To Be a Good Leader, First Be Human, by Deep Nishar, Senior Vice President at LinkedIn.  

Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci 

Many leaders believe that they need to be in control all the time. Their teams look up to them for answers and if they display any weakness or waver in their resolve, then the whole organization can crumble around them. 

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Far from true, is right.  At best, such control is shared among people in the organization,  keeping in mind, however, that leaders are appointed a high measure of authority and power.

It is incredibly powerful for your team to know that you can get frustrated, happy or concerned and that you are even stumped by professional situations. It encourages them to seek ways to succeed even as they experience these emotions themselves. It reduces self-doubt and increases our ability to reach out, collaborate and generally become better professionals and human beings.

Again, it's about balance and reasonableness.  Emotion is an inviolable part of ourselves, so to believe otherwise is to dismiss reality.  Yet, on balance, leaders must show greater steadiness, optimism and knowledge, over the episodes of frustration and uncertainty.   

It takes the focus away from ourselves and puts it on the problem at hand.

A leader who is fundamentally self-absorbed may very well call attention on himself or herself, and some staff members may be inclined to reinforce that self-absorption.  But there must be a collective (shared) effort to focus on the problem at hand, instead.  The balance between being steadfast and showing emotion, which lends itself best to such focus, depends on the people in this collective.  

Being human is not a sign of vulnerability, it’s a mark of strong leadership.

Being human may be a sign of strength or a sign of vulnerability, depending on the leader and depending on the situation.  Regardless, it is a fact that being human is a mark of leadership.

What Google Looks for in People

Senior VP on People Operations Lazlo Bock on "How Google Decides on Hires"

Four broad factors:

1. Ability to solve problems
2. Emergent leadership
3. Fit with culture
4. Dealing with ambiguity

Staff members' relationships with their managers are arguably the most important to cultivate and sustain.  It's about engaging them, mentoring them, and holding them accountable.  Managers may ask simply:  What are you doing well, and what can I do to help you do more of it?  But its the spirit of care and attitude of accountability that must be evident in their day-to-day work.

Business, Sports and Moneyball

Sports is multi-fold excitement + multi-million dollar business. Here are the numbers for the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat. Staggering, eh.

But success in sports is more complex than just investing money into top talent. Yes, teams need talent, but analytics has offered those on a tight budget some ways to win.

The Failings of CEOs

The failings of high-profile CEOs, as Bloomberg Business Week reports, ought to be good lessons for the rest of us top leaders. We have the benefit of learning from their mistakes, which I hope prompt us to self-reflect and, of course, self-correct as needed.

Former Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn

Declining stock price, cratering same-store sales, loss of market share to more nimble competitors, and an addiction to share buybacks that cost the company $6.4 billion with little to show for it—that’s why [Dunn is] on the list.

Possibilities and Realities of Emerging Markets

If they're not already, senior executives need to be thinking about emerging markets very seriously, if they're truly serious about growth, so says McKinsey. The possibilities should make them salivate, just by thinking about these.

The realities, however, aren't so easy to grasp, let alone take advantage of. Think about this: Suppose you were to dispense with your CEO moniker, and don spandex Ts and shorts and pursue a qualifying spot in track-and-field at the next summer Olympics. A daunting proposition, right? But think about pursuing a spot on the decathlon. That's 10 events you'd have to be good at, instead of just 1. In one evocative metaphor, McKinsey gives us the lowdown on the challenges of actually capturing these emerging markets! 

McKinsey research shows that the largest companies headquartered in developed economies currently derive only 17 percent of their revenues from emerging markets, even though these markets already represent 36 percent of global GDP.

In this video, McKinsey experts Yuval Atsmon, Peter Child, Richard Dobbs, and Laxman Narasimhan offer an overview of the opportunity—and why executives are paying attention to this driver of global growth among new consumers. Find some of our best thinking on emerging markets in "Winning the $30 trillion decathlon."