Hyperactivity is best known as being one of a number of symptoms that present in sufferers of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) but during this study, in which hyperactivity is taken as a behaviour rather than a symptom of an underlying condition, hyperactivity is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, nor is it always undesirable whether or not is it present due to ADHD, another diagnosed condition or simply as a personality trait.

The study, conducted by Ingrid Verheul and her team, from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), looked at some twenty thousand people in Sweden and Norway and found that, contrary to popular misconception: hyperactive behaviour is not an indication that the sufferer is doomed to lengthy periods of unemployment, not a sign that that sufferers will struggle with work.

Instead, the demands of entrepreneurship (coming up with a new service or product, the lengthy process from drawing board to readiness for that first sale, the drive for funding, research and the endless tinkering to get everything just right) are best served by a high-energy hyperactive person. This feeds into the sometimes obsessive interests of ADHD sufferers, but transforms it from an issue in the classroom, when one’s attention must change from subject to subject in fifty-minute windows, to an absolute positive in the workplace.

This study is timely: there has been an increase of some 43% in the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses in young people in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Brazil – instead of a cause for alarm, perhaps this indicates that before long there will be a new wave of entrepreneurial ventures across the business world, from industry to technology to eco-friendly processes and products.

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When business leaders are caught contravening their own policies, their reputation and leadership capabilities are called into question. To retain their voice and effectiveness as a leader, employers and managers must ensure that their personal values and beliefs align with the vision and mission of the company they represent. You can only put an idea into practice when you believe in it. Business leaders should clearly communicate what changes in routines, procedures and behaviour they want to see and they should model the image they want their employees to present. This helps to enhance employees understanding of the changes communicated and emphasises your commitment as the leader of the team to the changes you want to see within your organisation. Following the same protocols outlined for your employees ensures that you are seen as an effective leader of a unified team, rather than someone who takes advantage of their position to serve their own purposes.

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Studies and Evidence

A  recent study  conducted by the head of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School: Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen, found that women make better leaders than men. Martinsen gathered almost 3000 managers and determined their personality and characteristics, including their leadership skills. In his findings, he concluded that overall women triumphed over men in four out of the 5 categories assessed. These categories were: initiative and clear communication; openness and ability to innovate; sociability and supportiveness; and methodical management and goal-setting.

In 2011, Zenger Folkman  conducted some research and found that women have better overall leadership skills than their male counterparts. 16 competencies were looked at and rated by respondents. Out of the 16 competencies, females were rated more positively in 12 out of the 16 categories. Some of these categories included: taking initiative, practising self-development, high integrity and honesty, helping to develop others, building relationships and more.

Communication

Traditionally it is thought that women are better at communicating their ideas and articulating what they are thinking. According to  Nitin Nohria ,a Harvard business school professor, the best leaders ‘spend the bulk of their time communicating, which is why some female leaders excel in this area.

Compassion and empathy

It has been suggested that being empathetic can strengthen successful leadership ability. A study in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology (1995) concluded that women copy other people’s emotional expressions much more than their male counterparts and as a result are much more likely to show empathy.

Perspective

Women also have the ability to look at different perspectives and often look at and work problems out differently to men. They are also better at seeing things from different points of view. Women also like to find solutions to problems that will involve everyone in the process and utilising the different skill sets of various people for a better outcome overall.

Conclusion

Despite there being considerably less women leaders than male leaders in the workforce, women can make great managers and the business world could benefit from having more women at the top, as research has shown, they have many qualities that could help drive businesses and make them thrive. This is reflected in the slow but continued increase of women at the top.

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It’s cited so often that it’s almost a cliche, but Clive Sinclair’s launch of the personal transporter the Sinclair C5 in 1985 is an obvious example of a failed attempt at creating an innovative product that customers didn’t ask for, and it turned out didn’t need. For the few readers not familiar with the device, it was a battery powered vehicle that could reach speeds of just 15mph – half way between a recumbent bicycle and a Segway, but with the downsides of both!

Of course designing products that customers don’t realise they need can pay dividends too. How many people were asking for a fully touch screen phone when the iPhone appeared? The difference between the two examples is that Apple paid attention to what customers wanted – the ability to easily type on a phone – but read between the lines of what they said when they asked for a keyboard. They wanted to type easily, and only saw options as either a keyboard or a simple numbers.

This points to the key skill in listening to customer needs – taking what they say not just at face value, but being able to discover and tease our their true wants. This in practice means that a single focus group session won’t cut it. During the product development process you’ll need to go back several times and ask new questions based on ideas and progress within development.

If you’ve already got an existing customer base that is the target market of your new product, you’ve got an inbuilt advantage. Many will be happy to assist you in development for free, getting to enjoy the benefits of the new product before their competitors.

For those aiming at a market segment that is new to their company, things can get tricker. Professional organisations exist that can help you reach these markets and conduct your research for you, having done this many times before. They will be skilled at communicating with you to discover your aims in the product and with potential users to establish their needs and desires.

This can be great for initial research, but taking this in house and putting these customers in front of the development team directly can produce even better results. This is challenging and there is likely going to be a culture shock – many engineers won’t be used to the subtleties of communication needed to take the words of a potential customer and see the real business meaning.

However overcoming these difficulties will be key to creating a rockstar development team that can produce winning products every time. Ingrain into your corporate culture working with customers throughout the development cycle, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely. Segregate your engineering and product development teams from your audience, and any product that does come to market will require extensive modification to meet consumer desires or will fail completely.

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Recently, challenger energy supplier Octopus announced its ambition to serve 100 million customers worldwide via its Kraken platform. Energy generator Drax said it will carbon-negative by 2030. Elon Musk wants SpaceX to send one million people to Mars by 2050. These ambitions and benchmarks, whether they’re extraterrestrial or more modest, motivate staff and concentrate efforts. But how can we keep our target on target—ensuring it doesn’t slip out of focus, ensuring it isn’t thwarted or eclipsed by other problems, ensuring it’s successful and all facets of it delivered?

A four-question framework, proposed by Marco Mancesti, Research and Development Director at IMD, can guide businesses setting and striving for goals.

He uses the example of Volkswagen to demonstrate how a goal can get off track. In its 2014 annual report, the German car manufacturer announced its intention of becoming “the world’s leading automaker by 2018—both economically and ecologically.” And Volkswagen did achieve part of this goal, selling more vehicles than Toyota in 2016. However, the ‘dieselgate’ scandal meant that Volkswagen certainly hadn’t achieved the ecological clause of its ambition. Whether or not it was the largest seller of cars by volume, its reputation would be badly tarnished by the scandal.

So what questions should your business ask to keep its goals in focus and avoid the errors made by Volkswagen? Mancesti suggests the following:

1. How will you measure success? First, you’ll need to set indicators—the measurements you’ll use to determine if you’ve met your goal. These might be revenue, they might be carbon intensity, they might be volume of sales. But they’ll need to encompass all parts of your goal. Mancesti calls this ensuring your indicators are “wise.” 
2. Are eternal circumstances favourable or hostile to your goals? You also need to pay attention to the context in which your business operates. This can encompass everything from the state of the wider economy to governmental regulation to consumer appetites to media scrutiny. Will these external circumstances help or hinder the delivery of your goals? Are they changing over the timeline of your plan? Volkswagen’s error was in overlooking increased attention on ecological matters, especially from state regulators and NGOs, and the mounting environmental concerns of the public, which led to the exposure of dieselgate and the backlash against the brand.
3. How pertinent is your strategy? Is your plan delivering results? As the context changes, is your plan still feasible and worthwhile? Don’t be afraid to reevaluate the strategy for achieving your goals.
4. How ready is your team? Before setting a lofty goal, you need to ensure your team can do the work to deliver it. It needs to be aligned, integrated, both knowledgable and capable of innovation. It needs to be able to rise to challenges and produce solutions as contexts evolve, strategies are revised, and you confront the inevitable hitches, from fierce competition to financial crises to just plain bad luck.

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The study examined the video games industry—known for its demanding projects, requiring adroit management— to find out how the status of a project leader influences the success of the project. The study confirmed researcher and PhD graduate Balazs Szatmari’s hypothesis: that mid-ranking managers were most likely to lead projects to success.

In contrast, high-ranking managers found mix results. They have the social capital to sell the idea behind the project to senior management and to motivate skilled colleagues to enthusiastically join their project. However, this status means team members are less likely to see or point out their weaknesses or failures. 

Szatmari examined 349 projects from an online database documenting the development of video games since 1972 and for which a single project leader—or producer, in video game parlance—could be identified. He then assessed the quality and success of these video game projects by taking into account critics’ reviews, customers’ ratings, the size of the project’s budget, whether it surpassed expectations for that budget and how innovative it was.

He found that mid-ranking leaders delivered the projects with the highest-quality, while projects led by managers with very high organisational status were typically the same quality as those run by low-status products.

Szatmari said his research demonstrates that firms need to be aware of the organisational stature of project managers when appointing them.

“This is something organisations should be aware of when they assign the managers of projects or even when they evaluate projects in the past,” he said.

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The number of British CEOs operating the FTSE decreased from 65 one year ago to 61 out of 100 companies, distinguishing global CEOs.

However, the loyalty of FTSE executives is rewarded, and of the 40 leaders on Robert Half FTSE 100 CEO tracker who got their position through interior promotion, 60% are UK citizens. This had nearly doubled since 2015 when only 21 of the company’s new CEOs said that the company’s loyalty and experience are core values ​​for a British CEO.

Interestingly, almost half (47%) of the top CEOs come from other countries, and 14 of the new CEOs this year, six come from the rest of the world, eight from the UK. That brings the dial closer to half split.

Given that globalization brings novel personalities and challenges, it’s fascinating to realize that the “average” CEO of FTSE is still a UK man in his fifties. Again, the CEOs aged the 40s has increased this year. Other factors that also challenge the old-style CEO profile are:

• While financial history remains the preferred way to become CEO, those with financial experience remain to decline. 40% of the chief executives have a fiscal background this year, indicating a decrease of 15% compared to 2016 (55%).

• Last year Robert Half CEO Tracker noted that tech-savvy executives are increasing. This year, the “tech-savvy CEOs” numbers are stable at 11%. This shows that FTSE companies are convinced of their technological capabilities in all industries before the initiation of disrupting events like digital transformation and GDPR.

• The results also display that large UK companies no longer play on FTSE 100 carousel and go beyond their counterparts. CEOs have been selected from FTSE companies that have stabilized in the past four years.

Grubb concludes that because of an evolving governance landscape, traditional experiences might not be the established criteria for managing the top companies of the prospect. However, education, global experience, and values ​​like tenure and loyalty will forever be significant.

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Workplace training is vital to not only ensuring that employees are capable of reaching their potential within the business, but also in ensuring employee happiness and motivation. Employees that feel valued by employers are more productive and less likely to leave. Increasing evidence suggests that employees will even sacrifice pay rises to feel that the company they work for develops them as individuals and within the company.

Falling behind other companies is a common symptom of lack of investment in training, especially as technological innovation rapidly changes many aspects of the workplace. Upskilling employees to be at the forefront of new innovations can dramatically reduce costs and increase effectiveness, allowing businesses with highly trained employees to outmanoeuvre larger companies and gain market share.

Training can take many forms, and businesses may have suffered training fatigue from training conferences and programmes designed to attract custom without providing real value. Encouraging employees to select their own training direction and have the freedom to choose how to learn can be a great way of increasing motivation within your workforcce.

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Seeing this can serve as a source of ideas to improve a product or service ‘s appeal, address unmet consumer needs, or decide new ways to benefit. But how do executives analyze other sectors to find growth gaps in their businesses?

Here are four clear guidelines to help:

Creating synergistic combinations

Seek to find elements that can build synergies with one’s own business in another company’s core product – so that the combined result is substantially higher in consumer value.

Mapping and filling gaps in customer preferences

Throughout the context of other industries ‘products or services, it may be helpful to map that customer’s needs addressed by such goods or services to recognize unmet consumers’ needs and thus reflect innovating potential. The capacity of laptops and smartphones, for example, to satisfy consumer expectations for flexibility and portability, is substantially different.

Making services into products – and vice versa

The disparity between goods and services does not restrict their analysis if managers consider the fundamental offers of other industries. But it may also be useful to find how this service could be turned into a product if the vital proposition of all the other business is a consumer.

Innovating in the delivery of the offering

While this main supply from other industries is significant, the way the critical amount is supplied to consumers is also vital.

Seeing beyond the company’s borders can deliver very strong and sometimes unexpected innovation ideas. Hopefully, the consistent above will the probability that this exciting and messy trip does not take up valuable opportunities.

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Working within the business world, the inevitability of public speaking can be a frightening prospect for anyone, even the highest-ranking members of the corporate environment. Whilst speeches can be subject to character and circumstances, several universal truths to the art of speech giving can help anyone, and ensure speeches are intelligible, informational, enjoyable, and memorable.

Owning the spotlight

An effective speech calls for an easy balance of confidence and naturalness from entrance to end. Rather than forcing bold and awkward outward shows of confidence that may not exist, cultivating a sense of inner confidence and belonging will lead to natural, unconscious, and ultimately more convincing expressions of assuring confidence in the spotlight.

The subtlest changes in body language often produce the greatest effects. A straight and open posture that avoids slouching aids delivery from the chest in a calm and controlled voice. Simple, but decisive movements across the stage and relaxed positions will prevent a sense of physical inertia becoming a feature of the delivery itself.

Creating Trust

Trust from the audience underpins any successful public speech, so it is important to quickly build rapport with a speech’s opening minutes, dictating firstly expertise, then honesty. Expertise can be highlighted with testimonials, profiles, and data demonstrative of authority and skill, but not delivered so as to be an oral CV. A sense of honesty and trustworthiness can be further nurtured with an emotionally engaging introduction that lays out the speech’s key sentiments, points and takeaways, allowing the audience to see the plan with you, and enjoy the process of your speech unfurling.

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