Leadership 2030

Overview

Drawn from original research conducted jointly with foresight company Z-Punkt and further analyzed by Hay Group, Leadership 2030 uncovers six megatrends that will dramatically impact organizations' markets, cultures, systems, and processes:

1. Globalization 2.0: Asia dominates the global economy.

2. Climate change: Sustainability becomes imperative.

3. Individualism: Freedom of choice erodes loyalty.

4. Digitization: Boundaries blur between private and working lives.

5. Demographic changes: Aging populations intensify the talent war.

6. Converging technologies: The sharpest tech shift in history is around the corner.

Research findings and case studies provide compelling evidence of each megatrend and highlight the skills, capabilities, and attitudes leaders must cultivate, such as adaptability, collaboration, cultural sensitivity, strategic thinking, meaning creation, and more. In the rush to produce quarterly profits in chaotic conditions, the longer view is often obscured. This forward-thinking book helps businesses everywhere prepare for the seismic changes on the horizon.

About the Author

YVONNE SELL is director, Leadership and Talent-UK & Ireland, for Hay Group.

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Cover Copy

Drawn from research conducted by Hay Group, a global management consultancy, and Z_punkt, an international leader in strategic foresight analysis, Leadership 2030 pinpoints six converging megatrends, and provides direction for leading your organization through profound change:

1. Globalization 2.0: Asia is in economic ascent, with China and others adding vast numbers of middle-class consumers and excluding Western firms from intraregional trade. Strategic leaders will tap into these expanding markets—thinking and acting locally, forging alliances—and compete with powerful challengers.

2. Environmental crisis: Critical natural resources grow scarce and climate change more threatening. Creative leaders will balance rising costs with social imperatives to cut their carbon footprint.

3. Individualization and value pluralism: Customers and employees expect attention to their individual needs, dismissing the concept of loyalty. Attuned leaders will create opportunities for customized offerings and build enduring relationships with diverse employees.

4. The digital era: Young digital natives conflate working and personal lives and demand unpre?cedented transparency. Wise leaders will act with integrity—or jeopardize their reputations.

5. Demographic change: A rapidly aging population sparks full-scale battles for talent. Sensitive leaders will build multigenerational workplaces and man?age their competing demands.

6. Technological convergence: Nanotechnology and biotechnology merge, creating a massive wave of technological advances. Collaborative leaders will tap into new product markets and forge links with competitors to work on complex R&D programs.

These six megatrends should not be seen in isolation, but as an economic and social matrix impacting every organization—from multinationals trying to stay competitive as customers and capital shift East…to mid-sized companies trying to carve out sustainable niche markets…to tiny startups trying to attract talented people.

To guide their organizations through this massive change, leaders will need to shift from being egocentric to being altrocentric, with a wide range of competencies and a focus on the great diversity of employees and consumers that will be facing them.

Thought-provoking analyses assess the transformative effects of the megatrends on leaders and their organizations. Case studies, examples, interviews, and data drive home the evidence. Fictional profiles clarify the effects each megatrend has on decision-making processes. Together, they make Leadership 2030 your most sweeping, nuanced guide to the monumental challenges ahead.

Georg Vielmetter, Ph.D., is a member of Hay Group's European Leadership Team and the regional director-Europe of Hay Group's Leadership and Talent Practice. He works with executives and top teams on leadership transformation, and he also publishes and speaks on these topics. He is an alumnus of the German National Academic Foundation, and a member of the German Sociological Association as well as of the German Society for Philosophy.

Yvonne Sell, Ph.D., is the director of Leadership and Talent-UK & Ireland for Hay Group where, as part of driving the leadership and talent practice, she regularly provides press commentary and conference presentations on a wide range of leadership issues. She also works with Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis on researching emotional intelligence. .

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Excerpt

The book begins by analyzing the hard facts of each megatrend and

examining the implications that each has for leaders. We then explore

the consequences of all six megatrends and set out what leaders need

to do in response.

1. Globalization 2.0.A new economic world order is emerging. Power

is shifting to fast-developing markets in Asia (China in particular)

and away from "old? economies. This will result in numerous op-

portunities and threats from highly localized market dynamics as

a new middle class materializes in emerging markets.

2. Environmental crisis. Critical natural resources are becoming

scarcer and climate change more threatening as a result of human

activity. In the face of accelerating costs and social and market

pressures, leaders will need to fundamentally rethink their oper-

ations if they are to continue to compete.

3. Individualization and value pluralism. Growing affluence in

emerging markets will drive increasingly individualistic attitudes

in more parts of the world. People will come to expect their indi-

vidual needs to be catered to, as both customers and employees.

This will create niche opportunities for customized offerings,

greatly diversify the demands of employees, and require far greater

sensitivity and agility from organizations.

4. The digital era. Living and working with digital technology is be-

coming the norm. Digital platforms are shifting power from or-

ganizations to consumers and employees—particularly younger

"digital natives?—and breaking down old divisions between per-

sonal and professional life. This generates unprecedented trans-

parency, which will oblige leaders to act with sincerity and

authenticity or see their reputations plummet.

5. Demographic change. A burgeoning and rapidly aging world pop-

ulation will transform markets and place enormous pressure on

social structures and welfare systems. This will result in a shrinking

global workforce, sparking a war for talent among organizations

on an unprecedented scale. Leaders will need to cope with the de-

mands of an increasingly intergenerational workforce, in which

each age group has vastly diverse attitudes and requirements.

6. Technological convergence. Scientific progress in fields such as

nanotechnology and biotechnology will transform many areas of

our lives, the greatest advances resulting from the combination of

these technologies. This wave of innovation will create untold new

product markets. It will also place huge demands on companies

to stay ahead of the curve and to collaborate closely with competi-

tors on complex R&D programs.

In our study of the megatrends and in compiling this book, we

have made every effort to take a truly global perspective. The mega-

trends are, after all, global in nature, and we have considered in detail

their implications for large, global organizations.

However, we are a German and a Canadian; our nationalities,

backgrounds, cultures, and social education are unavoidably Western.

To an extent, therefore, we cannot help but address the issues at hand

with Western perspectives, mindsets, and thought processes.

'

Excerpted from LEADERSHIP2030: The Six Megatrends You Need to Understand to Lead Your Company into the Future by Georg Vielmetter and Yvonne Sell. Copyright © 2014 by Hay Group Holdings, Inc. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Empire and Manure

1 Lost in Translation: Globalization 2.0

2 Less Is More: The Environmental Crisis

3 Power to the Person: Individualization and

Value Pluralism

4 Remote Possibilities: The Digital Era

5 Social Insecurity: Demographic Change

6 Great Expectations?: Technological Convergence

7 Reinforcers, Dilemmas, and the Perfect Storm

8 Footnotes, Not Headlines: The Altrocentric Leader

Conclusion: The Journey to Altrocentric Leadership

Endnotes

Index

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