Delivering Stakeholder Value Through Human Capability:
The Emerging World of Work
by Dave Ulrich

Everyone recognizes the rapidly evolving world of work with social, technology, economic, political, environmental, and demographic (STEPED) disruptions. While it might have been possible before to focus on customer or strategy or technology or culture or people or leadership or new HR operating models, today’s complex and rapidly changing business context requires alignment, integration, and simplicity in the face of complexity. Let me suggest three simple (not easy!) principles shaping the new world of work. […]

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The Gardener and the Machine: Rethinking Leadership for the Post-Knowledge Age
By Mark Béliczky

In an age when machines can learn almost anything, the true work of leadership is learning how to cultivate what machines cannot — understanding, trust, and the conditions for human flourishing.
Artificial Intelligence has achieved what Peter Drucker once called the triumph of knowledge. It can summarize, simulate, and predict with astonishing speed — yet it cannot understand. AI holds humanity’s accumulated intelligence but not its lived wisdom.[…]

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Generativity and the Human Future of Leadership
By Joseph Pistrui and Dimo Dimov

Leadership as we’ve known it is faltering. The pace of change has outstripped our mental models, and the heroic ideal of the all-knowing leader can no longer bear the weight of complexity.
As artificial intelligence automates knowledge, institutions struggle with legitimacy, and ecosystems demand collective adaptation, the old forms of leadership—hierarchical, centralized, control-oriented—can no longer keep up.[…]

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Why Leaders Should Embrace The Value Creation Principles—And The Evidence That Supports Them
By Steve Denning

Business management today faces significant challenges, resulting in substantial economic costs. Global employee engagement remains at low levels. A PwC study indicates that customer trust in executives stands at 30%, while executives themselves estimate it at 80%—a notable misalignment. Meanwhile, many public companies deliver 10-year returns that fall short of the average S&P 500. A McKinsey study notes that only 27% of U.S. firms emphasize long-term returns. However, not all is bleak.[…]

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From Profit Machine to Value Powerhouse: Microsoft’s Epic Shift
By Steve Denning and Hugo Lourenco

In the early 2000s, Microsoft under Steve Ballmer was a rigid, profit-driven behemoth, locked into a toxic culture of internal rivalries, departmental fiefdoms, and a single-minded fixation on squeezing every cent from Windows and Office. Creativity? Stifled. Expansion? Sluggish. The tech giant fumbled massive chances, standing by as competitors like Apple and Google dominated emerging markets.[…]

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Leading Beyond the Illusion of Intelligence
By Alex Adamopoulos

We’ve reached a strange moment in business where intelligence itself is overrated. Everywhere you turn, companies are proclaiming their “AI-first” future, yet few can explain what that actually means in practice. The illusion isn’t in the technology; it’s in the belief that AI, by its mere presence, will fix what’s broken in how we work, lead, and learn.[…]

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