IQ Insigniam Quarterly® Spring 2017 — Making the Big Decision

TRANSFORMING THE PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Volume 5 Issue 2 | Spring 2017 | quarterly.insigniam.com
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DECISIONMEANSSTICKINGWITHITFORTHELONGHAUL
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MAKINGTHE
BIGDECISION
ALEADERSHIPCHARTER
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ANORGANIZATION
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SPRING 2017

“When executive teams are
coordinated in the actions
they take, they are better
positioned to pivot in the face
of disruption and capitalize on
new opportunities.”
—SHIDEH SEDGH BINA, FOUNDING PARTNER, INSIGNIAM,
AND EDITOR IN CHIEF, INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY
Over 30 years ago, Insigniam pioneered the field of organizational transformation. Today, executives
in large, complex organizations use Insigniam’s consulting services to generate breakthroughs in their
critical business results. Insigniam’s innovation consulting enables enterprises to identify and cross into
new strategic frontiers to rapidly generate new income streams. Insigniam provides executives of the
world’s largest companies with management consulting services and solutions that are unparalleled in
their potency to quickly deliver on strategic imperatives and boost dramatic growth. Insigniam solutions
include Enterprise Transformation, Strategy Innovation and Innovation Projects, Breakthrough Projects,
Transformational Leadership and Managing Change. Offices are located in Philadelphia, Laguna Beach,
London, Paris and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.insigniam.com.
SPRING 2017

quarterly.insigniam.com | INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY 1
In 1952, Boeing’s then-president, Bill Allen, made a game-changing
decision to launch the 707. It was a bold, bet-the-company move. Boeing had
no orders in hand and at the time was known for warplanes, not commercial
jets. Mr. Allen, however, was not deterred. Instead, he was convinced that the
future of air travel lay in commercial. So, with a $16 million budget in hand, he
built the first U.S. transatlantic commercial jetliner—and changed the course of
a company.
Mr. Allen’s move exemplifies the impact executives can have by doing
what they do every day: making big decisions. By going against the grain or
exploring the path less traveled, they can change the course of an
entire organization or the makeup of an industry.
That impact, however, goes both ways. For every transcendent
decision made by an executive, there are the ones that fizzle, that
flop and that possibly even fold a company. The examples are
plentiful. Take Western Union’s then-president, William Orton,
who in 1876 had the opportunity to purchase the patent for
the telephone. He ultimately passed, defending his decision by
calling the invention a toy, rather than technology.
Not every decision an executive makes will turn out to be the
right call, but the big ones define not only careers but legacies.
While the Jack Mas and Steve Jobses of the business world
are likely to be renowned for the good decisions they make,
the opposite must be said of the John Stumpfs and Elizabeth
Holmeses.
Game-changing decisions do not occur by happenstance.
They are not made on a whim or peddled with luck. They are
bold and strategic and purposeful. And ultimately, their success
or failure falls at the feet of the leaders at the top.
To succeed—and stomach it—these leaders must possess not only the right
combination of brains and guts, but also an iron will and a daring heart.
As Peter Drucker once said, “Wherever you see a successful business,
someone once made a courageous decision.”
DECISIONTIME
LETTER
FROM THE
EDITOR
Shideh Sedgh Bina
Founding Partner, Insigniam
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Shideh Sedgh Bina
sbina@insigniam.com
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Nathan Owen Rosenberg Sr.
nrosenberg@insigniam.com
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Jeff Mullican
jmullican@insigniam.com
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF
INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY
Natalie Rahn
nrahn@insigniam.com
PUBLISHER
James Meyers
jmeyers@imaginepub.com
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF
CONTENT OFFICER
Kim Caviness
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DESIGN
Douglas Kelly
VP, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Cyndee Miller
CONTENT DIRECTOR
Kelley Hunsberger
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Jeremy Gantz
EDITORS
Becky Maughan
Julie Ortega
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR
Hugo Espinoza
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Jonathan Ball, Sarah Fister Gale, Samuel
Greengard, Joseph Guinto, Tegan Jones, Novid
Parsi, Kate Rockwood
Insigniam Quarterly is a thought leadership
publication committed to transforming the
world of business by offering content relevant
to the C-suite and their executive teams at
large, complex, global enterprises.
Insigniam Quarterly is published by Imagination, 600 W.
Fulton St., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60661, (312) 887-1000,
www.imaginepub.com. No part of this publication may
be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior
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editorialmagazine toshare theopinionsand insightsof
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orindividualdoesnotindicatethatthey are aclientof
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QUARTERLYmarkisaregisteredtrademarkintheUnited
States,EuropeanUnion, andotherforeigncountries.
For every
transcendent
decision
made by an
executive,
there are
the ones
that fizzle,
that flop and
that possibly
even fold a
company.
SPRING 2017

Contents
COVERSTORY
STAYTHECOURSE
For Pitney Bowes CEO Marc
Lautenbach, decision-making is
all about the follow-through. The
company’s current transformation
effort is a case in point.
By Joseph Guinto
GAMECHANGERS
BALANCEOFPOWER
High-dollar decisions are part of daily
life for BC Hydro Deputy CEO Chris
O’Riley. To make the right calls, he
avoids relying on his gut.
By Sarah Fister Gale
ALLTOGETHERNOW
Trust, accountability, coordination. A
leadership charter helps these three
essential pieces fall into place, setting
the stage for breakthrough results.
By Shideh Sedgh Bina
DOYOULEADWITHINTEGRITY?
Harvard Business Professor Michael
Jensen delves into the philosophy of
integrity and why all strong leaders
must honor their word—even if they
cannot keep it.
Interview by Karen Christensen
TAMINGBIGDATA
Avoid analysis paralysis. Deriving
strategic value from big data starts
with asking the right questions—and
engineering initiatives around desired
outcomes.
By Samuel Greengard
24
42
32
54
38
FEATURES
SPRING 2017
PHOTOBYNICKHAGEN
SPRING 2017

“My job is not to predict the future
and have it come out right. It is to help
others see things coming and make
sure the company is never blindsided.”
—Sheryl Connelly, futurist, Ford Motor Company
On the Cover
Marc Lautenbach,
CEO of Pitney
Bowes, Stamford,
Connecticut, USA
Photo by Christopher
Beauchamp
Q&A:THEFUTURISTISHEREPAGE48
04 THETICKER
News and trends affecting the C-suite
08 NUMBERS
Decision-making by the numbers
12 BROWSERHISTORY
Apps to ease your mind, making time for family
and more
68 IQBOOST
The key to driving a powerful transformation in
an organization is to inspire and enroll others to
join the cause.
16 BLOOD,SWEAT&TEARS
Wade Jones would not settle for “good enough.”
Instead, Sabre Travel Network’s SVP of marketing
and strategy devised a plan to reach the company’s
true potential—and prove its critics wrong.
20 FROMTHEBOARDROOM
Groupthink and complacency in the boardroom
can spell disaster for a company. Cultivating an
outspoken board with a diversity of expertise is the
antidote.
64 PERSPECTIVES
Executives from around the world gathered with
Pope Francis and Fortune in December to discuss
how the private sector can help combat poverty and
advance sustainability.
DEPARTMENTS
INSIGHT
SPRING 2017

lectric cars are taking off. And Toyota wants in.
At the end of 2016, 2 million electric vehicles (EVs) were
predicted to have hit the roads worldwide, with a steadily
upward trend projected. The surging market, especially in
China, has fueled renewed interest—and a possible strategic
shift—from one of the world’s biggest automakers: Toyota.
Toyota has said, according to Fortune, that it would
reserve EVs for short-distance commuting, and instead
promoted hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) and plug-in
gasoline-electric hybrid cars as the best bet for long- to
medium-range commuting.
But FCVs, which have yet to transition into the current
mainstream fleet of cars, may fail to reach the critical mass Toyota
was betting on. According to a new study from IHS Automotive, by
2027 annual fuel cell vehicle production will surpass 70,000 units—
less than 0.1 percent of all vehicles produced that year.
The biggest roadblocks for these vehicles are the lack of public
hydrogen fueling stations available and the expense of building
them. According to IHS Automotive analyst Ben Scott, today’s
market simply does not justify the price. “[T]hat market needs to be
created to encourage investment in upstream hydrogen production
capability,” he said in the study.
This, along with improvements to the lithium ion batteries EVs
rely on, seems to be spurring Toyota’s reported pivot. According
to a report by Japanese newspaper Nikkei Asian Review, Toyota
has plans to establish a team in early 2017 devoted to developing
electric cars that can travel more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) on
a single charge. With a goal of pushing the cars to market in Japan,
California and China by 2020, the automaker aims to act fast.
It will face stiff competition. Volkswagen, Nissan and Tesla
have already bet big on EVs. The Renault-Nissan partnership, for
example, is launching an effort to build a low-cost EV to put on the
market in China possibly in the next two years, according to CNBC,
while Volkswagen has announced plans to unveil 30 all-electric cars
by 2025, according to the BBC. Will Toyota be able to catch up?
E
THE
TICKER
TOYOTA’SNEWBET
PHOTOCOURTESYOFTOYOTA
SPRING 2017

Top 5 Best-Selling Electric Vehicles
Source: EV-volumes.com Note: Rankings reflect global sales numbers through the first half of 2016.
1 32 4 5Nissan
Leaf
Tesla
Model S
BYD Tang
SUV
BYD
Qin
Chevrolet
Volt
The Toyota C-HR
Hybrid was recently
introduced in Europe.
SPRING 2017

6 INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY | Spring 2017
THE
TICKER
What happened to integrity in the
workplace?
For many companies, it has seemingly
been lost in the mix and mire of greed or
pressure to perform. In 2015, scandals rocked
Volkswagen and Toshiba. Last year, there
was Wells Fargo and Theranos, just to name
a few. It seems as if no industry or country is
exempt.
According to the 2016 Global Business Ethics
Survey produced by the Ethics & Compliance
Initiative (ECI), a company’s risk of an ethical
breakdown correlates to how integrity ranks
in the corporate culture.
The survey, which included responses
from 1,000 employees in each of the reported
countries, highlighted four key metrics that
“provide insight into the ethics environment
by highlighting the risks that emerge from
lapses of workplace integrity”:
1. The pressure to compromise
organizational standards: This is an
important warning sign of future workplace
misconduct.
DOTHE
RIGHTTHING
Percentage of Reporting
Employees Who Have
Experienced Retaliation
2. Observed misconduct: This is an indicator
of whether or not employees follow the rules
and live out the company’s core values.
3. The reporting of observed misconduct:
Silence around observed misconduct is an
indicator that wrongdoing will continue and
potentially worsen.
4. Retaliation against reporters (including
verbal harassment, demotions, undesirable
assignments or even violence): Perceived
retaliation will erode trust and often deters
employees from reporting misconduct, which
in turn allows bad behavior to broaden.
So which countries have the worst
integrity track record, according to
employees working in those countries? Here
is how several stack up against each of the
ECI’s metrics.
Percentage of Employees
Who Have Felt Pressure to
Compromise Standards
Who Have Observed
Misconduct
Who Have Reported
Misconduct They Observed
Brazil
India
Russia
France
Italy
Germany
South Korea
United Kingdom
United States
China
Japan
Mexico
Spain
Russia
Brazil
India
China
Italy
France
Mexico
United States
United Kingdom
South Korea
Germany
Spain
Japan
India
United States
United Kingdom
Brazil
Mexico
Japan
Italy
France
China
Germany
Spain
South Korea
Russia
India
United Kingdom
United States
Germany
Spain
Brazil
South Korea
Italy
Japan
Russia
France
Mexico
China
74%
37%
45%47%
43%
50%
34%24%
34%
63%
29%22%
63%
41%
43%40%
37%
53%
33%22%
34%
64%
28%20%
53%
46%
40%33%
36%59%33%22%
33%
71%
26%15%
50%
50%
34%30%
35%
61%
30%22%
31%
76%
21%13%
29%
82%
15%10%
Silence around
observed
misconduct
is an
indicator that
wrongdoing
will continue
and potentially
worsen.
ILLUSTRATIONBYDANEMARK/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

The best CEOs in the
world focus on the
long game and they
stick around, according
to Harvard Business
Review (HBR).
On average, the 100
executives on HBR’s
best-performing CEOs
list have been with their
companies for 17 years
and have generated a
20.2 percent annual
return. The CEOs
who made the cut
undoubtedly face what
HBR calls “the lure of
short-termism.” Their
ability to nevertheless
deliver strong multiyear
results is what puts
them ahead of the pack.
The top 10 CEOs of
2016 are:
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Last year was, for all intents and purposes,
a disaster for South Korea-based Samsung.
In August, several of the company’s
popular Galaxy Note 7 smartphones started to
spontaneously combust. After diagnosing the
problem as a battery malfunction and switching
vendors, Samsung recalled 2.5 million phones
worldwide, exchanging about 60 percent
in South Korea and the United States with
replacement phones.
Soon, however, reports began to surface
that the replacement phones were also
becoming too hot to hold or catching fire,
and Samsung, which had approximately $170
billion in revenue in 2015, was forced to kill
the Galaxy Note 7 line entirely. The cost of
the recall will total $5.3 billion through the
first quarter of 2017, the company reported.
To make matters worse, in November
Samsung recalled nearly 3 million of its
top-loading washing machines after it was
discovered that “vibrations during the spin
cycle could cause parts to fail or separate,
causing injuries or damaging property,”
according to Consumer Reports. The same
month, South Korea’s government raided
Samsung headquarters as part of an ongoing
corruption probe of the country’s president.
What might revive the beleaguered
company’s fortunes? New and improved
smartphones, maybe. In November, the
SAMSUNGSEEKSREDEMPTION
company announced plans to equip its Galaxy
S8 smartphones with a Siri-like voice-enabled
digital assistant called Viv. The new push is
mostly possible due to the company’s recent
acquisition of Viv Labs, the startup company
formed by the creators of Siri. According to
the Daily Express, Viv takes Siri to the next
level by being contextually aware and having
the ability to answer follow-up questions.
“Samsung is setting its sights on becoming
a major player in software and services,
and specifically AI,” said Viv Labs CEO
Dag Kittlaus. The company has “installed
a new cadre of senior [software-]savvy
management stretching all the way to the
top with a mission.”
RANK CEO COMPANY INDUSTRY COUNTRY
1 Lars Rebien Sørensen Novo Nordisk Health Care Denmark
2 Martin Sorrell WPP Consumer Services United Kingdom
3 Pablo Isla Inditex Retail Spain
4 Herbert Hainer* Adidas Consumer Goods Germany
5 Roberto Egydio Setubal Itaú Unibanco Financial Services Brazil
6 Jen-Hsun Huang Nvidia Information Technology United States
7 Bernard Arnault LVMH Consumer Goods France
8 Elmar Degenhart Continental Automobile Germany
9 Benoît Potier Air Liquide Materials France
10 Jacques Aschenbroich Valeo Automobile France
*Herbert Hainer stepped down in August 2016.
“Samsung is
setting its sights
on becoming a
major player in
software and
services, and
specifically AI.”
—Dag Kittlaus, CEO,
Viv Labs
A Samsung Galaxy
Note 7 ad in
Bangkok, Thailand
PHOTOBYWACHIWIT/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

8 INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY | Spring 2017 quarterly.insigniam.com | INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY 9
FORKS IN THE ROADThere is no shortage of concerns and techniques that drive executive decision-making.
Types of risks that most concerned them:
Their top strategic priorities over the next three years:
TOP CEO CONCERNS
86% of CEOs worry they lack the time to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation
shaping their company’s future.
TORCHBEARERS VS. FOLLOWERS**
Those at each end of the spectrum have different strategic priorities and approaches.
For example, torchbearers are more ambitious …
**In this survey, companies with strong reputations as innovators and strong financial track records are labeled “torchbearers.” Companies with much lower
market profiles (in the opinions of the executives who head them) and far less financial success are labeled “market followers.”
Emerging
technologies
Strategic GeopoliticalRegulatory
Fostering
innovation
Cybersecurity
Stronger
client focus
Implementing
disruptive
technology
Talent
development/
management
Stronger
marketing,
branding and
communications
30% 28% 26% 25% 24%
21% 19% 18% 18% 17%
0
5
10
15
20
25
%%%%%777711118%118%1%%%%%%9999111
30% 78% 62% 45%of more experienced*
CEOs adopt a more
strategic approach to
innovation, compared
to 25% of less
experienced CEOs.
of more experienced
CEOs believe it is
important to foster a
culture of innovation,
compared to 63% of
less experienced CEOs.
77%
59%
68%
50%
… and more adaptable:
Torchbearers prefer more decentralized decision-making:
67%
57%
100%
66%
67%
46%
Torchbearers
Market followers
Torchbearers
Market followers
Torchbearers
Torchbearers
Market followers
Torchbearers
Market followers
Market followers
Torchbearers
Market followers
Explore new delivery
channels
Reassess and alter
customer segments
Embrace agility Experiment extensively or
somewhat
Enter new geographic
markets
*In this study, more experienced means more than five years.
NUMBERS
SPRING 2017

10 INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY | Spring 2017 quarterly.insigniam.com | INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY 11
Sources: Corporate Visions, Losses and Gains: Does Loss Aversion Influence Executive Decision-Making?, 2016; Heidrick & Struggles and Saïd Business School at the
University of Oxford, The CEO Report, 2015; IBM Institute for Business Value, Redefining Competition: Insights from the Global C-suite Study – The CEO perspective,
2016; Redefining Boundaries: Insights from the Global C-suite Study, 2015; KPMG, Now or never: 2016 Global CEO Outlook, 2016.
63% of CEOsbelieve they use data and analytics (D&A) effectively, but 59% do not fully trust
the accuracy of their D&A activities.
LEVERAGING DATA AND ANALYTICS
THE POWER OF UNCERTAINTY
If you sometimes doubt yourself, you are not alone.
LOSS AVERSION
Executives are more likely to take a risk if it seems like a way to avoid a loss.
Top company uses for D&A:
71%of CEOs say they have
doubted themselves.
10%say they do not, but they do
use techniques to reduce uncertainties.
19%say they never do.
When a decision was framed by its potential gains:
74% chose the safe plan of action
26% went for the riskier plan
When the same decision was framed by its potential losses:
55% said they would play it safe
45% would take the riskier action
PREDICTING THE FUTURE
Executives use these techniques to foresee what is next in their industries:
Nearly all CEOs emphasize the pace
or speed of change as a complicating
factor in their decisions.94%
Driving process and
cost efficiency:
44%
Driving strategy
and change:
44%
Finding new
customers:
43%
Developing new
products and services:
43%
Predictive analytics:
63%
Brainstorming:
80%
Simulations:
51%
Prescriptive analytics:
46%
Crowdsourcing:
23%
Cognitive computing:
13%
This is a 73%
increase in
selection of the
risky plan when
framed by
possible losses.
NUMBERS
SPRING 2017

BROWSER
HISTORY
FRAMEOFMINDA roundup of books, apps and other resources from and for the C-suite.
How Women Decide:
What’s True, What’s Not,
and What Strategies
Spark the Best Choices
by Therese Huston.
Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2016.
“Society has been
underestimating women’s
abilities to make astute
choices for years.” This
is just one of many declarations Ms. Huston,
a cognitive psychologist, makes in How Women
Decide. Her goal is to smash gender stereotypes
about female managers and their decision-making
processes, while offering practical advice to help
readers gain confidence in their own decisions.
While Ms. Huston’s frequent use of social science
examples throughout the book may drive some
readers away, How Women Decide is truly a book for
everyone—including men.
Sustaining Capitalism:
Bipartisan Solutions to
Restore Trust & Prosperity
by Steve Odland and
Joseph J. Minarik. The
Conference Board, 2017.
Capitalism has created
unparalleled prosperity,
yet there is a growing
crisis of confidence in
both business and the economic system. In this
book, Mr. Odland and Mr. Minarik—veteran
leaders of corporate America and U.S. politics,
respectively—argue that today’s executives and
policymakers need to deliver more value to
more people. The authors identify reforms to
both public policy (including health care and
education) and corporate-specific practices (such
as rejecting short-termism) that can lead to long-
term prosperity. The main takeaway is clear: The
system can be fixed.
Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless
Questions for Resolving Your Toughest
Problems at Work by Joseph L. Badaracco.
Harvard Business Review Press, 2016.
If only all business decisions were black
and white, with options that were clearly
good or bad. But of course, more often
than not we are faced with the gray areas
of decision-making. In Managing in the Gray,
Mr. Badaracco, the John Shad professor of
business ethics at Harvard Business School,
presents a framework of five questions to
help managers tackle their hardest decisions.
Sometimes analytics are not enough, he
asserts; human judgment must come into
play. Mr. Badaracco finds time in the book
to cover everything from groupthink to
character, offering dozens of solid case
studies. Managing in the Gray will not solve all
your problems, but it may help you handle
them better.
PHOTOBYDTOKAR/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

BRAINMASSAGE
Break out of unhealthy mental habits—check out these apps to help you focus,
stay calm and wake up more refreshed.
Stop, Breathe & Think provides
customized meditations based
on your current state of mind.
Developing a sense of mindfulness
can help you stay focused,
present and calm, according to
stopbreathethink.org. It can offer
vital support while making tough
business decisions.
Available on: iOS, Android, Web
The music on focus@
will is specifically selected
to facilitate intense focus.
The songs have no lyrics,
and their sequence aims to
induce what the site calls a
flow state—which is why it
has no pause button.
Available on: iOS, Android, Web
Grogginess can result from
waking up in the wrong sleep
phase. To avoid this, Sleep
Cycle analyzes your sleep and
wakes you up during your
lightest sleep phase. The goal:
to feel refreshed when you get
out of bed.
Available on: iOS, Android
TUNE IN
Need a new podcast to follow? Check
out Rationally Speaking. Every two weeks,
the series hosted by Center for Applied Ratio-
nality co-founder Julia Galef explores a different
angle of decision-making with a thought leader. In a
December episode, for instance, Stanford University
Professor of Health and Policy John Ioannidis
discusses evidence-based medicine, a movement
that advocates for doctors to use quantitative
methods when determining treatments
rather than intuition or prevailing
common wisdom.
PHOTOBYROBTEK/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

Over the course of 18 months ending in
October, German retailer Hugo Boss saw
the value of its shares fall by almost 50
percent. The primary culprits? A devaluation
of the brand (which has seen prices cut in
department stores as well as much of its
merchandise moved to discount shops) and
poor performance in China. Leadership
had some tough decisions to make.
Fortunately, CEO Mark Langer—
who was promoted from CFO in the middle
of the fray—has been unafraid to make them.
In October, he announced the brand would no
longer pursue the luxury market (and move
away from womenswear), instead returning
to its premium men’s clothing roots. “The
effort to make in-roads in the luxury market
didn’t prove to be particularly helpful for
our business,” he told German newspaper
Handelsblatt.
BROWSER
HISTORY
NEWBOSS,NEWSTRATEGYATHUGOBOSS
Mark
Langer,
CEO,
Hugo Boss
A Boss Store window
in London
SPRING 2017

THISISYOURLIFE:BALANCINGACT
The average CEO works 10 to 11 hours per day, according to a survey by CEO.com and software company
Domo. That does not leave much time for family. Here are some balancing tricks top CEOs recommend.
1
Keep track: Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Dell subsidiary
VMware, has his secretary maintain a family-time
balance sheet with point accruals, he told The Wall
Street Journal. Coming home at 5 p.m. earns him
two points, while a 6:15 p.m. arrival wins him one point.
Points are deducted any time he spends weekend days away
from his family.
Similarly, Bloomin’ Brands CEO Liz Smith uses a “time
bank account,” according to Joann S. Lublin’s book Earning
It: Hard-Won Lessons From Trailblazing Women at the Top of the
Business World. Her goal is four hours a day with her sons.
If work causes her to fall short, she makes up the deficit the
following week. “Some days, I would cancel my meetings
that morning because I was in the hole to them,” she said in
the book.
3
Meet in the
airport:
Traveling is
a large part
of being a successful
executive, so why
not make the most
of your time in the
airport? For example,
because Ms. Smith of
Bloomin’ Brands and
her husband both travel
frequently, in the past
they have arranged
catch-up meals at New
York’s John F. Kennedy
International Airport,
according to Earning It.
“I was flying out and
he was flying in. We
would see each other in
passing,” she recalled.
2
Be ruthless with your calendar: In
Earning It, former Yahoo and Autodesk
CEO Carol Bartz recalled saying to
her assistant during one scheduling
rendezvous, “I don’t care if the pope comes
to audit us. I am going to [my daughter’s]
Christmas Sing.” Eric Poirier of investment
management software company Addepar told
The Wall Street Journal he marks dedicated
family time on a calendar that everyone in the
company can see so they know he has a life
outside work—and they should too.
Ms. Lublin suggested regular family
meetings to organize schedules, sometimes
a year in advance, so everyone’s needs can be
addressed.
OPPOSITEPAGE:TOPPHOTOBYANDREASBASTIAN/ALAMYSTOCK.THISPAGE,CLOCKWISEFROMTOP,SZEFEI,POBA,RAWPIXEL/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

SHARPENINGSABRE
Wade Jones was given a tall order at Sabre
Travel Network: help push an already good
company to become great.
By Novid Parsi
ometimes good is no longer good
enough. Sometimes it is a sign of
complacency, and in order to avoid
future obsolescence, a shake-up
becomes necessary.
Such was the case for Sabre
Travel Network. Although the
company’s top-line business had
been consistently profitable, in
2015 the CEO of parent company
Sabre Corp. decided that to drive long-term
growth, the $3.2 billion technology company
needed to reassess and sharpen its value
proposition. Sabre Travel Network would be a
key contributor to that growth.
For decades, Sabre Travel Network
has connected travel buyers
(corporate travel departments,
travel agents, individuals) with
travel sellers (airlines,
hotels, car rental
companies) through
its global distribution
system (GDS). Whenever
someone makes a
reservation on Expedia, for
example, Sabre is the behind-
the-scenes platform that
makes that transaction possible.
The Southlake, Texas-based
company has offices on five
continents and handles around
100,000 data transactions per
second; it is the leading provider
of air bookings in North America.
Sabre’s executive team was convinced
Sabre Corp. was not reaching its true potential
and had grown complacent. The CEO wanted
to put to rest any doubts about the value of its
GDS: Some naysayers called it a “dumb pipe,”
mere middleware that facilitated transactions
S
INSIGHT
BLOOD, SWEAT
& TEARS
“Just
because our
results were
good didn’t
mean we
shouldn’t
aspire for
better.”
—Wade Jones
PHOTOCOURTESYOFSABRE
SPRING 2017

but did not add real value. To catalyze a leap
in the Travel Network business and help Sabre
Corp. fulfill on the opportunity in front of it,
Wade Jones was brought on in 2015 to identify
how Travel Network ought to transform itself
and then be the change-maker that pushes the
company toward bold financial goals.
“Just because our results were good didn’t
mean we shouldn’t aspire for better,” says Mr.
Jones, Travel Network’s senior vice president
of marketing and strategy. “We were under-
leveraging the assets we had—meaning we
could be bigger and more profitable. We
wanted to make sure we weren’t complacent.”
“Wade brings new thinking to an already
strong organization,” says Scott Beckett, a
partner with Insigniam who works closely with
Sabre. “His ability to see new horizons and
opportunities was a real complement to Sabre’s
innovative and growth-minded culture.”
In his almost three-decade career, Mr. Jones
had often helped organizations in crisis make
immediate and radical changes to survive.
Such companies had “a burning platform” for
change, he says. But the situation at Sabre was
different—and that attracted his interest. “What
appealed to me about Sabre when I walked into
it was that it was a very successful company
that had a desire to drive more growth using a
profitable underpinning,” Mr. Jones says.
Not too long after joining the company,
Mr. Jones’ direct boss—and the president of
Travel Network—retired. Sabre named Sean
Menke, a longtime and highly successful
airline executive, as the new president of
the division. Mr. Menke and Mr. Jones
quickly found common ground. The pair
knew they had time, but not much, to make
things happen: Sabre had given them just a
three-year window to make the necessary
transformational changes, whatever they
might be. “Nobody was prescriptive about
how we should go about doing it,” Mr. Jones
says. “To me, that’s where the fun work is.”
A THREE-POINT PLAN
To determine where exactly the organization
needed to go, Mr. Jones and his strategy
team first had to understand where it was.
To start, he went on a listening tour, meeting
with employees throughout Sabre as well as
its customers. Mr. Jones asked two simple
questions: What is Sabre doing well, and
what could it do even better? “I didn’t look
for anyone to be held accountable for what
was wrong. But you have to get the truth out
on the table,” he says.
After just one week of these
conversations, Mr. Jones identified three
key things Sabre needed to do: better
leverage its data and analytics, break down
its organizational silos and develop a clearer
sense of its purpose and value proposition.
“Sabre is the clear market leader in several
critical segments, and with such success comes
competitors desperate to steal share and topple
the leader from its perch,” Mr. Beckett says.
Sabre has a treasure trove of data and
analytics, Mr. Jones says, “but we weren’t
turning that into insights and taking action
based on it.” So he decided to push the
company to deepen its understanding of
exactly how customers use its platform and
how their activity creates the most value
and profit. Then Sabre would be armed with
the right insights to decide how to improve
features and how to price them.
The company’s ability to optimize product
investments to power growth hooked directly
to Mr. Jones’ next goal: breaking down silos.
The organization’s three distinct business units
were obstacles to strategic innovations, in his
view. He spotted a major opportunity: “We
could collaborate more effectively, particularly
with our colleagues in technology, product
development and sales,” he says.
Sabre had been divided into three
product areas: The first was responsible
for managing the content sold through
the network, the second for making that
content available to customers and the third
for fulfilling customer transactions. While
those units remain, Mr. Jones recommended
restructuring them to drive interactions.
QUICKHITS
The Challenge: Despite a
track record of profitabili-
ty, the leadership at Sabre
Corp. was concerned the
technology company had
grown complacent and
needed a shake-up to
drive future growth.
The Plan: The executive
team decided to drive
growth via the Sabre
Travel Network division
and hired Wade Jones to
do so. He was given three
years to chart a course
for transformational
change within Travel
Network.
The Execution: With
insights from a listening
tour of customers and
employees, Mr. Jones
identified a three-point
plan: better leverage
data and analytics, break
down organizational silos
and develop a clearer
value proposition.
The Result: Two years
into the three-year
transformation, teams
are interacting more
closely, Travel Network
has a clear value prop-
osition and Mr. Jones
is consistently building
buy-in and engagement
with the strategy from
employees.
SPRING 2017

“Our
customers
are very
good at what
they do, but
our role as
a business-
to-business
partner is to
help them
be more
successful.”
—Wade Jones
right buyer at the right time. They wanted
automation of non-value-adding platform
features. Travel consultants wanted to spend
more time doing what they are good at:
selling travel.
Building off the clear need to boost those
capabilities, Sabre’s new purpose and value
proposition came into focus. Ultimately, it
was about deepening the commitment to
customers’ success, Mr. Jones says. “Our
customers are very good at what they do, but
our role as a business-to-business partner is to
help them be more successful.”
THE ART OF CHANGE-MAKING
With the course forward charted, the real
challenge for Travel Network was now
at hand: Sabre’s recent rosy performance
contributed to a good-enough mentality, at
least among some employees, Mr. Jones says.
“When you’re actually outperforming prior
expectations, there can be a mindset of, ‘Well,
why do we have to do better?’”
But from his perspective, the stakes could
not be higher. “If people are predicting your
demise, that should be a motivator to make
sure you are innovating and driving value,”
he says, referring to critics saying Sabre’s
market-maker business model needed to be
disrupted. “You have to expand your value
from just core services so that you protect the
future of the business model.”
While support for the transformation of
Travel Network from the CEO and the rest
of the executive team was indispensable, it
alone could not bring adequate buy-in for
change. “Any time you’re trying to drive
change, you have some people who aren’t on
board with it, some who are on the sidelines
with a wait-and-see mindset and some who
are totally on board,” Mr. Jones explains. To
drive more people into the latter category,
Travel Network executives looked to get
some early wins. “That can make the highly
engaged people almost like disciples for the
“They now have to work across the three
parts of the value chain,” he says. Whereas
before a product team would hand off
requirements for a new feature to the
technology team, those teams now work
closely together. “Everybody should feel like
they have skin in the game on behalf of our
customers,” Mr. Jones says.
To further break down divisions within the
company, Travel Network handed decision-
making powers around product capability
and marketing to regional offices. Mr. Jones
admits, “I don’t believe in the ivory-tower
thinking that innovation comes only from
headquarters or the product team.”
“One of Sabre’s key assets is its
relationship with its customers and its
awareness of the realities happening in
the markets of its customers,” Mr. Beckett
adds. “Sabre’s challenge was to leverage
scalability without forsaking the necessary
customization appropriate to its customers
and their markets.”
Breaking down silos set the stage for the
third piece of Mr. Menke’s and Mr. Jones’
transformational playbook: refining Sabre
Travel Network’s purpose, strategy and vision
for the future. In the past, the organization
had primarily focused on making sure its
platform’s offerings kept up with competitors
and pleased all customers. The downside
to that approach was that “when you make
everybody a little bit happy, no one’s happy,”
Mr. Jones says. The solution: Rather than
trying to provide everything to everyone,
Sabre needed to be more selective and
strategic, with a laser focus on features that
drive value to customers.
To learn what was most important to
customers, Sabre conducted interviews with
hundreds of them around the world over
12 months. This process revealed that both
travel agents and suppliers wanted greater
personalization of merchandise—that is, the
ability to get the right travel product to the
INSIGHT
BLOOD, SWEAT
& TEARS
SPRING 2017

new approach,” he says. Employees quickly
saw the value, for instance, of more fine-
tuned data and analytics and more disciplined
product governance.
Travel Network further secured buy-in
from employees by not taking on too much
too soon. Mr. Jones focused his strategy
rollout plan around the three defined areas
rather than trying to optimize every corner
of the company. “That way, rather than
overwhelm ourselves,” he says, “we built
organizational muscle memory we could
then use on the next set of building blocks.”
CRAFTING THE TEAM
Throughout the process, Mr. Jones has not
shied away from ensuring the right people are
on board to meet new demands. Empowered
by Mr. Menke to build a world-class team,
Mr. Jones knew he needed to make changes
if employees did not have the necessary skill
set to help move the organization forward.
While letting some employees go and hiring
others, Mr. Jones made a point of assuring his
steadfast workers they were doing well. “It’s
really important to make sure that those who
remain don’t feel rattled or uncertain,” he
says. “You want to give them as much clarity
as you can so they’re motivated.”
By shaking up his own group first, Mr.
Jones intended to set an example for his
peers, including the heads of finance and
technology. “I made a lot of changes within
my own area that were influenced by the
feedback I got from people in other areas,”
he says. “People saw that I wasn’t taking an
arrogant point of view—that making change
was everybody else’s problem.”
“Wade’s leadership in first focusing on his
team demonstrated his awareness that Sabre
needed to change everywhere, and he was
not going to ask others to do what he would
not do himself,” Mr. Beckett says.
Reward and recognition have been a big
part of driving change—the “fastest way to
change any organization,” Mr. Jones says. “I’m
a big believer in rewarding your best people
disproportionately. That motivates the ones
doing well to do even better and spurs the ones
not yet at that level of performance by letting
them know exactly what they need to do—and
what they have to gain by doing it.”
Two years into the three-year journey,
Mr. Jones remains clear-eyed about
the transformation Travel Network is
undergoing. Recently, Mr. Menke was
promoted to lead the whole of Sabre
Corp., leaving the team in Travel Network
to go forward vigorously, as planned.
“Transformations never go as fast as you
want them to,” says Mr. Jones. “I’m always
amazed when people say all they need is a
clear strategy. You can have a great strategy,
but if you don’t have a plan and you don’t
execute it, strategy doesn’t matter.” IQ
Postscript: As of January 1, Sean Menke now
serves as president and CEO of Sabre Corp.
Wade Jones has been named the interim
president of Sabre Travel Network.
“I don’t believe in the ivory-tower
thinking that innovation comes only from
headquarters or the product team.”
—Wade Jones
“People saw
that I wasn’t
taking an
arrogant
point of
view—that
making
change was
everybody
else’s
problem.”
—Wade Jones
PHOTOBYRYANLANE/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

INSIGHT
FROM THE
BOARDROOM
hen a boardroom is
little more than an echo
chamber for the will
of a single voice or an
unwavering mission,
complacency—and
failure—often follow.
Take the rise-and-fall
saga of blood-testing
startup Theranos. Led by
CEO Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley
company—once valued at $9 billion—had a
meteoric rise on the biotech scene, garnering
an abundance of buzz and money alike.
Ms. Holmes landed Theranos a high-profile
partnership with Walgreens and became
a darling of the business world, gracing
SAYGOODBYETO
GROUPTHINK
Diverse and outspoken boards prevent passivity—
and prime companies for better decision-making.
By Sarah Fister Gale
W
magazine covers and landing a slot on Time’s
Most Influential People list.
But the kingdom came crashing down
when The Wall Street Journal published a 2015
report discrediting the validity of Theranos’
technology. More than 32,000 of the
company’s blood tests were declared void,
Walgreens filed a suit and the company’s
valuation bottomed out.
What went wrong? One big factor was
the company’s lack of transparency—its
technology was never peer-reviewed or
fully verified by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration. But fault has also been
placed with the company’s board, which was
packed with big names like Henry Kissinger
yet lacked expert representation from the life
sciences or health care community. Without
that, the board failed to fulfill key functions
of its role, including pushing back on strategy
and scrutinizing data.
“There are no sitting chief executives [from]
other companies—a basic tenet of board best
practices,” wrote Fortune senior editor Jennifer
Reingold about the company’s board at the
time. “There is but one still-licensed medical
expert, Bill Frist ([William] Foege, age 79,
PHOTOBYDUTKO/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

is retired). And while it’s probably useful to
have a retired government official or two to
teach and offer good leadership skills, when
there are six with no medical or technology
experience—with an average age, get this, of
80—one wonders just how plugged in they are
to Theranos’ day-to-day activities. Nor is there
anyone with formal accounting or auditing
expertise or legal expertise, which may now
become an issue, based on the questions raised
in the [The Wall Street Journal] article.”
Since the scandal erupted, the board
has undergone a major restructuring, but
the original incarnation seemed to largely
follow Ms. Holmes’ lead. It succumbed
to groupthink, not an uncommon board
affliction. Enron, Olympus, Volkswagen and
Toshiba all suffered major scandals, and in
each instance their respective boards were
criticized for unquestioning conformity.
One powerful bulwark against groupthink: a
culture that embraces cognitive diversity.
WANTED: SPRING CHICKENS
Diversity of thought starts with diversity
of people. An overly homogeneous board,
made up of like-minded people of a similar
age, experience and ideology, is insulated
from the wider world and lacks objective
viewpoints, according to Fause Ersheid, an
economist and senior corporate governance
analyst and researcher at the Abu Dhabi
Center for Corporate Governance in the
United Arab Emirates.
And with such uniformity comes great peril.
“Homogeneous groups run the risk of
narrow-mindedness and groupthink (i.e.,
premature consensus) through misplaced
comfort and overconfidence,” lead author
Adam Galinsky and colleagues wrote in a
2015 report published by the Association for
Psychological Science. “Diverse groups, in
contrast, are often more innovative and make
better decisions, in both cooperative and
competitive contexts.”
Much has been made about the business
value of gender and racial diversity. A report
from nonprofit Catalyst, for example, found
that Fortune 500 companies with the highest
representation of women board directors
attained significantly higher financial
performance, on average, than those with
the lowest representation. But age diversity
also matters in dismantling groupthink.
The average age of all S&P 500
independent directors rose to 63 between
2010 and 2015. This does not bode well for the
many companies trying to appeal to young
customers in a rapidly evolving, technology-
driven business environment, Mr. Ersheid says.

ROCK THE BOAT
Simply establishing a diverse board guarantees
nothing unless members are empowered to
point out flaws and missteps. And that culture
must be defined from the top.
When Jane Chwick joined the board of
directors at Voya Financial, an $11 billion
investment and retirement firm, in 2014, she
was asked to join the finance committee. It
made sense: Ms. Chwick spent 30 years at
“As a board
member,
it’s your
responsibility
to take action,
even if it’s
difficult.”
—Jane Chwick, board
of directors, Voya
Financial
SPRING 2017

Goldman Sachs before retiring four years
ago. But the majority of her experience was
based in technology, not finance. Yet she
soon discovered she had among the strongest
financial backgrounds of anyone on the
committee. “I knew enough to ask the right
questions, but I also knew we needed to add
depth,” she says.
So she brought her concern to Voya CEO
Rodney O. Martin Jr. “He was incredibly
receptive to that input,” Ms. Chwick says.
He immediately added two new members
with deep financial experience to the board.
Mr. Martin’s willingness to acknowledge
shortcomings not only helped plug potential
holes, but also nurtured an environment
where criticism is not just heard, but valued
and acted on.
A board that cannot communicate dissent
has a real problem, says Beth Stewart, a
former board director for CarMax, General
Growth Properties and AV Homes Inc. “The
main thing boards need are people confident
enough to be willing to speak up when it
really matters,” says Ms. Stewart, CEO of
New York-based Trewstar Corporate Board
Services, a search firm that focuses on placing
qualified women on Fortune 500, mid-cap
and private equity boards.
Creating an environment that encourages
everyone to express opinions—which
describes Voya’s board—is critical. This
becomes more complicated, however, when
the board has a dominant leader accustomed
to being in charge, Ms. Chwick says. But
such pressures are not an excuse for board
members to be complacent. “If the CEO
won’t listen to the board’s advice, it’s the
board’s job to fix the situation,” she says. “If
you can’t make people pay attention when
you see a problem, then maybe you should
question your value on that board.”
A critical examination of strategy and
INSIGHT
FROM THE
BOARDROOM
“If you can’t
make people
pay attention
when you see
a problem,
then maybe
you should
question your
value on that
board.”
—Jane Chwick
SPRING 2017

C-suite decisions should not be limited to
times of obvious trouble. Board members
must be willing to question the status quo
even when things seem great. “During
the global financial crisis, everyone in the
financial services industry knew bundled
subprime mortgages were very risky, but no
one raised a flag,” Mr. Ersheid says. “Because
of groupthink, board members closed their
eyes. No one wanted to rock the boat when
everyone was making a profit.”
No doubt, board members must walk a
fine line.
“If a company is doing well, you don’t want
the board to be constantly raising alternative
ideas just because they think it is part of the job
description,” Ms. Stewart says. “However, there
needs to be a balance. Board members must
be knowledgeable and willing to engage when
companies are faced with critical decisions—
for instance, about things like executive hiring
and compensation, mergers and acquisitions or
strategic operational issues.”
THE LIMITS OF LIMITS
Some organizations are introducing term
limits to ensure boards avoid the same old,
same old syndrome. “New board members
bring a fresh perspective that can break the
groupthink mentality,” Mr. Ersheid says.
Term limits can also help independent
directors stay that way—and continue to
battle groupthink by taking a more objective
stance, he says.
In France, for example, directors are no
longer considered independent if they have
served on a company’s board for more than
12 years. And in the United Kingdom, publicly
traded companies must either terminate a
director after nine years of service or make
an argument as to why the long tenure has
not compromised his or her independence.
This practice is less common in the United
States. Only 13 S&P 500 companies have
imposed term limits for non-executive
directors, according to the 2015 Spencer Stuart
Board Index. However, 69 percent say they
have a strategy to encourage regular board
refreshment.
Companies opposed to term limits
often argue that changing the board every
few years means they lose the benefits a
tenured board brings to decision-making.
A 2015 study from Sydney, Australia-based
University of New South Wales found
companies with a higher proportion of
experienced directors were:
n More likely to change CEOs when
performance faltered
n Less likely to misreport earnings
intentionally
n Less likely to make acquisitions, which
often expand a CEO’s power while
diminishing shareholder value
Ms. Chwick, however, argues term limits
for boards are often simply “an easy way out
of having tough conversations.” Boards need
to create an environment where everyone
is comfortable calling out members not
performing effectively—whether that person
has been on the board for two years or 10.
“As a board member,” she says, “it’s your
responsibility to take action, even if it’s
difficult.” IQ
“The main thing
boards need are
people confident
enough to be
willing to speak up when it
really matters.”
—Beth Stewart, former board director, CarMax,
General Growth Properties and AV Homes Inc.;
CEO, Trewstar Corporate Board Services
SPRING 2017

StaytheCourseFor Pitney Bowes
president and CEO
Marc Lautenbach,
making a decision
means sticking with it
for the long haul.
BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PORTRAITS BY CHRISTOPHER BEAUCHAMP
SPRING 2017

SPRING 2017

itney Bowes could have easily been wiped
out by the digital revolution. But when Marc
Lautenbach was brought on board as president
and CEO, he made a commitment to accelerate
the transformation of the multibillion-dollar
organization into what is now billed as a “global
technology provider.” It is the stuff of leadership
legend, and yet Mr. Lautenbach says the true test
of his—and any executive’s—big decision comes
in the follow-through.
“Many large organizations tend to employ
the same strategies when they pursue change
or have change thrust on them by market
forces,” he says. “Success is not so much a
question of decisions on strategic choice as it
is a question of your capability and fortitude
to stay on the new course you’ve chosen.”
For more than 90 years, Pitney Bowes has
been synonymous with postage meters, sup-
plying its more than 1 million customers (in-
cluding 90 percent of global Fortune 500 com-
panies) with mailing services. But as customers
transitioned many of their communications
efforts from paper to online, the company
needed to make its own transition. That evolu-
tion began in full force shortly after Mr. Laut-
enbach arrived at the company’s headquarters
in Stamford, Connecticut, in December 2012.
The transformation process can be chal-
lenging, however, with revenues falling in
four of the last five years. Even as net income
spiked from $143 million in 2013 to $408 mil-
lion in 2015, revenues fell from $3.9 billion to
$3.6 billion during the same period.
Many executives might start doubting their
decisions. But Mr. Lautenbach remains stead-
fast in his mission to make Pitney Bowes a ma-
jor player in e-commerce.
“We have continually decided to choose the
alternative that creates the most long-term val-
ue, even if it creates short-term disruptions,” he
says. “And in today’s world of the equity mar-
kets, that’s something that’s challenging. I think
mostcompaniesbowtothatpressure,andthat’s
why most companies don’t end up transform-
ing themselves. They make decisions thinking
something is the right long-term bet and then,
when things start going the wrong way, they
don’t have the fortitude to stick with it.”
New Directions
Transformationdoesnotalwaysrequirewhole-
sale reinvention. As he looked to make Pitney
Bowes a relevant digital player, Mr. Lauten-
bach aimed to build on its core strengths and
identity, redefining it for a new context.
The process began by examining the com-
pany’s true north—the vision, values and ser-
SPRING 2017

vices that define the organization and make
it tick. The decisions Mr. Lautenbach made
from then on built upon that foundation.
“As you’re thinking about transforming a
company, or at least as I thought about trans-
forming Pitney Bowes, you try to realize those
cores, those gems that you have that you can
pivot off of to create that next chapter,” he
told Fortune. “We have been and continue to
be a mail company, but there’s other germs of
that business that we can begin to create our
new future.”
Under Mr. Lautenbach, for example, Pit-
ney Bowes added an entirely new but related
business unit focused on digital tools and ser-
vices, including mobile apps, that now delivers
more than $1 billion of annual e-commerce
business. Online marketplace eBay, for one,
uses Pitney Bowes software to automatically
determine where any given package can be
shipped internationally and how much the
duty on that item will cost. Another piece of
Pitney Bowes software pinpoints the locations
of 1.2 billion users of social media for the likes
of Twitter, Zillow and other social platforms.
Such high-profile customers have helped
bring digital services up to 10 percent of over-
all revenue at Pitney Bowes, with digital sales
jumping 29 percent in 2015. As Mr. Lautenbach
told The Wall Street Journal in 2016: “Very few
things are quite as profitable as a mail meter.
But software is one of those businesses that ac-
tually has very attractive margins, and it makes
this equation a lot easier to close.”
To create a new future for a company,
however, leaders cannot simply consid-
er what it could be—they must also know
what it will never be. Mr. Lautenbach, for
example, is quick to point out that Pitney
Bowes is not a logistics company. He does
not see Pitney Bowes as a competitor to the
likes of UPS or FedEx. Instead he sees them
“Success is not so much a question of
decisions on strategic choice as it is a
question of your capability and fortitude to
stay on the new course you’ve chosen.”
—Marc Lautenbach, president and CEO, Pitney Bowes
Marc Lautenbach introducing the
Pitney Bowes Commerce Cloud in
April 2016 in New York City
as partners, with Pitney Bowes enabling
their efforts.
“We solve a problem that starts with the
cart and the cart management and consumers
buying online, all the way through the ship-
ping,” he told Fortune. “So, there’s a bunch
of complicated stuff in the middle of those
transactions—customs, duties, who the right
shipper is—and Pitney Bowes solves all that.
If you think about the core of that solution,
where we started, it was online postage. We’ve
just moved left and right. And that to us is the
recipe for how you transform a company. You
take something that you’re really good at, you
move left and right and you create something
that is very differentiated.”
But the transformation wasn’t all about
moving in new directions.
To regain its footing, Pit-
ney Bowes also needed to
breathe new life into its leg-
acy business. So Mr. Laut-
enbach worked to break
down business as usual.
That included cutting ex-
penses by changing the
PHOTOSCOURTESYOFPITNEYBOWES
SPRING 2017

way the units spent money to make money.
Did the company really need dozens of dif-
ferent billing systems? No. Did it really need
weeks to turn over its leased inventory? No.
Did salespeople need to make all of their sales
calls the old-fashioned way—in person? Defi-
nitely not. “I rode around with a salesman in
London who had 500 clients and was doing it
all face to face,” Mr. Lautenbach said in an in-
terview with Barron’s. To boost efficiency, the
sales team has pulled back on some of that
face time, bringing online interactions and
phone calls into the client interaction mix.
Tell a Good Story
Mr. Lautenbach’s decisions for both revamp-
ing the legacy business and building up new
business have been met with trepidation by
some in the organization who could not see
past the upheaval these developments caused.
And that ties back to his point about executive
decision-making: Making the right call is just
the start. Executives must follow through to
overcome any opposition and make the new
future seem like the only one.
“To a degree, decision-making and strat-
egies are the easiest part of the process,” he
says. “How you communicate the decisions,
how you manage the change, how you drive
those decisions, is the difficult part.”
Mr. Lautenbach says his secret to success
is storytelling. “We remind people over and
over again why we’ve made this decision and
why we are making these changes, because
they will forget and will just focus on the dis-
ruption,” he says.
At the executive level, these conversations
are a regularly occurring part of the process.
Every 90 days, Mr. Lautenbach meets with his
executive team to share what has happened
during that period and make a plan for what
the next 90 days should look like. At first, he
“If you can be structured in
how you make decisions and
transparent about why you made
the decision you did, that allows
people to follow the logic.”
—Marc Lautenbach
SPRING 2017

1. How do you stay on top of
industry trends?
I read a tremendous amount. I put
aside about a half day each week just
to read. I wander out to Silicon Valley
and visit with venture capital compa-
nies and small startups to see where
the industry is going. Just try to open
yourself up to as many different
apertures as you possibly can.
2. What is the best piece of advice
you have ever received?
Stay true to yourself. That has worked
out for me.
I’ve read a lot of books on leader-
ship and authenticity by Bill George,
the former CEO of Medtronic [includ-
ing 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis,
True North, Finding Your True North
and Authentic Leadership]. I think
Bill’s got it right. If people believe
you’re authentic, they may or may not
subscribe to your particular form of
authenticity, but inevitably you’ll get
people that do. It’s the method actors
who have problems.
3. How do you take your mind
off work?
I’ve got two dogs and a great family,
so I’ve got a lot outside the office. I
also play golf.
3QuestionsWith
MarcLautenbach
SPRING 2017

says, attendees tempered their comments.
Eventually, however, after Mr. Lautenbach
showed that these meetings were a safe space
to share the good and the bad, the team start-
ed opening up. And not just to him. “All of a
sudden, they’re telling the stories to one an-
other,” he says.
Mr. Lautenbach, however, is not naive
enough to believe that storytelling will bring
everyone on board in every instance. “You
also have to resign yourself that not everyone
is going to buy into the changes that you are
making,” he says.
But in the face of that sharp disagreement,
it is still possible to garner respect by showing
a decision was not impulsive, but rather the
result of real thought.
“Even if you think you’re making the right
decision, putting down on a piece of paper all
the alternatives at a very simple level, with the
pros and cons, is a healthy thing to do to make
sure you don’t overlook a particular option,”
he says.
That kind of process helps executives com-
municate the rationale behind their decisions,
Mr. Lautenbach says. The reply from employ-
ees may be, “Wow, that makes sense.” Or it
may be, “No, you missed an alternative or you
didn’t judge the pros and cons correctly.” Ei-
ther way, talking people through a sound ex-
planation helps builds trust and buy-in.
“That’s a problem with people who are in-
stinctive about making decisions,” Mr. Laut-
enbach says. “It’s hard for them to get people
to follow because they can’t really explain
how they arrived at their decisions. If you can
be structured in how you make decisions and
transparent about why you made the decision
you did, that allows people to follow the logic.”
Gut Check
Pitney Bowes’ transformation has not hap-
pened as quickly as executives would hope.
In addition to a slight drop in revenue in re-
cent years, the company’s stock has also lost
value from more than $22 per share early in
Mr. Lautenbach’s tenure to around $13 a share
more recently.
And yet, Mr. Lautenbach does not plan to
change course.
“When you make a change, there are cer-
tain underlying assumptions you make—
how clients want to buy, the capabilities of
an organization to execute the change, the
economics of the change, etc.,” he says. “You
should stay with the change as long as you
The Pitney Bowes stand at
drupa 2016, the international
trade show held in Düsseldorf,
Germany, every four years
SPRING 2017

“To a degree, decision-making and strategies are the
easiest part of the process. How you communicate the
decisions, how you manage the change, how you drive
those decisions, is the difficult part.”
—Marc Lautenbach
still believe the underlying assumptions are
correct. But when making transformative
change, you need to continually check and
recheck your assumptions.”
And in instances when your decision was
ultimately the wrong call, the best mea culpa
is complete transparency.
When he was at IBM, for instance, Mr.
Lautenbach failed to communicate why cer-
tain decisions made as part of a sales force
re-engineering were hurting performance in
his global small- and medium-business divi-
sions. “I was operating for the first time on
a closer proximity to senior executives, and
it took me a while to get my footing in that
environment,” he says. “That almost cost me
my job. I quickly went from being one of the
youngest officers at IBM to almost being one
of the youngest officers to get fired.”
Eventually, though, Mr. Lautenbach found
his way. “Once you can clearly articulate prob-
lems in a nondefensive way, and if you are au-
thentic about those problems, people will rally
around you,” he says.
But communication is not one-size-fits-all.
That is especially true at a large global enter-
prise such as Pitney Bowes, with a board of
directors overseeing top executives and share-
holders conscientiously tracking results. “You
have to understand how the stakeholders look
at any key decision, because they don’t all look
at it the same way,” Mr. Lautenbach says. “So
in communicating any decision, you have to
start with the frame of reference of whom
you’re trying to communicate to.”
At the same time, Mr. Lautenbach says ex-
ecutives cannot run around terrified that ev-
ery decision they make is going to cost them
their job. “When you get to the point in a job
or a career where you realize that the worst
they can do is fire you, it is liberating to a de-
gree,” he says. “Life will go on. You’ll likely
find another job. Your dogs will still like you.”
This fortitude, perhaps the most import-
ant characteristic of Mr. Lautenbach’s deci-
sion-making style, was honed during his 27-
year tenure at IBM. “The major transforma-
tions we’re making at Pitney Bowes are chang-
es I’ve got firsthand experience with,” he says.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Here’s how to hit a golf
shot.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘I’ve hit this shot
before and I know how to make it.’”
In 2005, Mr. Lautenbach received a pro-
motion that had him working under current
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty as general manager
of IBM North America. It was a big advance-
ment—and one fraught with risk.
“My predecessor, for all the right reasons,
had done a fairly substantial re-engineering of
the sales processes,” Mr. Lautenbach says. “I in-
herited that new sales model midflight. It end-
ed up being the right thing to do, but it was in-
credibly disruptive for about 12 to 18 months.”
The model—which had the sales team
shifting to a setup where specific client rela-
tionships were assigned to salespeople based
on geographic territories instead of sales chan-
nel—was so disruptive, in fact, that many at
IBM wanted to abandon the changes under-
way. Mr. Lautenbach disagreed, and did not
budge. “I decided that I was going to stick to
my guns,” he says. “Organizations don’t adapt
that quickly to new ideas. That’s why resolve
is important after you’ve made key decisions.”
And it is that resolve that continues to push
him forward at Pitney Bowes. “This is a diffi-
cult period for the company because we’re
going through these changes,” Mr. Lauten-
bach says. “But I talk with team members and
they all say the same thing: ‘Stick with it, we’re
doing the right things.’ We’re not necessarily
achieving everything we want tactically this
year, but people love that we’re doing the right
things for our future.” IQ
PHOTOCOURTESYOFPITNEYBOWES
SPRING 2017

SPRING 2017

On a flying trapeze, the
success—and survival—of
the troupe relies on per-
formers meticulously car-
rying out their respective
parts in a complex chore-
ography of coordinated ac-
tions. As one person soar-
ing through the air releases
the bar, another must time
his or her actions to catch
that person. If poorly co-
ordinated, the act will not
just fail; it could prove fatal.
It is not that different for a business. The
“performers” are the members of the exec-
utive leadership team. As with the trapeze
troupe, success or failure hinges on the group’s
execution of coordinated action, with each
person playing his or her role while committed
to a common goal.
All
Together
Now
To drive powerful alignment across
executive teams, start by crafting a
leadership charter.
BY SHIDEH SEDGH BINA
ILLUSTRATION BY NEIL WEBB
SPRING 2017

That kind of coordinated action does not
happen on its own, however. Instead, you can
instill, inspire and empower the right actions by
defining roles, expectations, behaviors, account-
abilities and parameters for the team in a formal
leadership charter. Done correctly, a charter will
become one of the most powerful weapons in
your arsenal for driving alignment, communica-
tionandcollaboration—exponentiallyincreasing
the enterprise’s ability to execute breakthrough
results and unlock competitive advantage.
At the same time, by putting the leadership
team fully in sync, a charter can unleash a
powerful force across the organizational stra-
ta: agility. When executive teams are coordi-
nated in the actions they take, they are better
positioned to pivot in the face of disruption
and capitalize on new opportunities.
Defining Your Purpose
When an executive team initially gathers to dis-
cuss developing a leadership charter, I like to
reference the parable of the three stonecutters:
A traveler came across three stonecutters and
asked each what they were doing. The first re-
plied that he had the worst job in the world:
moving huge stones to make a living. The trav-
eler gave him a coin. The second stonecutter did
not complain, stating he was earning a living by
doing the best job of stonecutting in the entire
county. Again, the traveler gave a coin. When
the traveler met the third stonecutter, he looked
happy and was singing a cheerful song. The
traveler was astonished and asked, “What are
you doing?” The stonecutter looked up with a
visionary gleam in his eye and said, “Can’t you
see? I am building a cathedral.”
As the parable illustrates, people will take
pride in their work when they understand the
greater purpose to which it contributes. John-
son & Johnson is a great example of what re-
sults can flow out of this broader vision. The
multibillion-dollar company has a credo deep-
ly rooted in a sense of purpose, containing
such statements as: “We are responsible to the
communities in which we live and work and to
the world community as well.”
That is not to say the company does not
have obligations and commitments to employ-
ees and shareholders (both are listed in the cre-
do as well). But its mission transcends revenue
and stock price. The payoff? Johnson & John-
son is considered one of the most innovative
companies in the world and ranked among
“The 25 Happiest Companies to Work For in
2017” by CareerBliss.
As with Johnson & Johnson’s credo, consider
a greater purpose as the inspiration when char-
tering leadership teams as well. Start the discus-
sion with your leadership team by asking:
n What cathedral is the team building?
n Why will it exist?
n Whom does it serve?
Once the purpose is clear, more tactical
questions can be defined, including:
n What actions am I counted on to provide?
n What are the most critical accountabilities
relevant to my role?
n What are the metrics that gauge my perfor-
mance?
It is also helpful to outline such details as
meeting frequency, duration, protocols and
other topics related to the operations and in-
frastructure of the group within the charter.
The Big Question
Make no mistake, the true opportunity of a
leadership charter—and for you personally,
as a leader—is determined by how you are
perceived by those around you. You might be
the most congenial person in the world, but if
others perceive you to be inconsistent or inef-
fective, their actions—and interactions with
you—will follow accordingly.
PHOTOBYGLOBALSTOCK/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

You can instill,
inspire and empower
the right actions
by defining roles,
expectations,
behaviors,
accountabilities
and parameters for
the team in a formal
leadership charter.
SPRING 2017

Therefore, as part of the charter, it is best
that leadership team members answer a fun-
damental question: “Who do we promise to be?”
Consider committing to a series of be-
haviors and recording them in the leadership
charter. These are behaviors that you would
want others to mention when describing you.
From that point forward, members of the
group can be held accountable by their coun-
terparts to act in full accordance with these
written behaviors. Otherwise, the credibility
of the individual and the charter can quickly
become compromised.
The “R” Word
No leadership charter will be meaningful until
each member truly commits to being reliable.
Resist the temptation to dismiss this as inconse-
quential.Whenreliability,whichweatInsigniam
refertoas“workingasyourword,”isestablished,
agreed upon and upheld it can catalyze break-
through results and agility across the enterprise.
In its most basic form, this means doing
what you say you are going to do, when you
say you are going to do it—and then commu-
nicating when it is completed. Inversely, in
situations where you will be unable to honor
your commitments, it is important to openly
and immediately communicate this, as well as
any associated risks that may result, to those
who are counting on you.
It is also important to accept that you are
responsible for the repercussions of failing to
deliver on promises. If you are not going to
be there to catch the trapeze artist reaching
out for your hand, make sure they understand
how the situation has changed, long before
they let go of the bar. And there needs to be a
safety net in place to catch them.
From Conversation to Negotiation
Leadership charters become actionable
through the alignment and execution of deci-
sion rights. Once a leadership charter has been
The true opportunity of a lea d
you personally, as a leade r
you are percei v
No leadership
charter will
be meaningful
until each
member truly
commits to
being reliable.
PHOTOBYALTINOSMANAJ/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

drafted and agreed upon, the CEO will often
reconvene with the executive leadership team
to outline which mission-critical decisions he
or she will retain and which each member
of the team will own. This is the time when
the conversation becomes a negotiation with
the ultimate intent of establishing alignment
across the group. This does not mean agree-
ment, but rather coalescing around a set of be-
haviors to which leaders commit themselves to
acting in, consistently.
This is where things get interesting. I have
seen some of the most fascinating conversa-
tions take place at this stage, especially in the
midst of large-scale mergers and acquisitions.
It is helpful to center any dialogue around
the four actions of decision rights:
1. What are the critical decisions I must be em-
powered to make?
2. Whom do I consult?
3. Whom will I inform? Whom will I need
to enroll?
4. Who can veto this decision?
While making the decision is important,
we often overlook that there are other actions
that have to take place, including consulting
and enrolling. For example, it is critical to con-
sult the executive leading R&D when deciding
on a new product-development strategy in
marketing. Or, while CFOs have myriad deci-
sions to make, if they fail to enroll the manag-
ers and executives who have to execute those
decisions, there is a low probability of success.
Being consulted and enrolled are as much
rights in decision-making as being the person
who makes the ultimate decision.
But, just as enrollment will make or break
the power of your decision-making in an en-
terprise, so will the lack of appreciation or bal-
ance for the role with the veto power.
There are certain critical decisions where
someone in the organization may have veto
a lea dership charter—and for
leade r—is determined by how
percei ved by those around you.
power. Think of the head of regulatory affairs
in a pharmaceutical company when a new
drug is being developed, or the chief market-
ing officer who owns “the brand.” In either
case, there are situations in which a decision
may be unacceptable because it threatens the
boundaries for which these roles are account-
able. If your organization has too many deci-
sions with veto roles, you only have a pretense
of decision rights. Have too few, and you risk
compromising structural soundness.
As you are working through these ques-
tions, do not confuse a decision rights matrix
with a responsibility assignment or RACI ma-
trix. Whereas RACI is focused on accountability,
decision rights are wholly focused on who is
entitled to participate in making a decision.
When handled in a facilitative setting, estab-
lishing decision rights can afford an organization
tremendous clarity. Decision rights can lead to
profound and meaningful growth, increased ef-
fectiveness and heightened morale. Conversely,
if anindividual’sdecisionrightsarenothonored,
the leadership charter becomes meaningless.
Now or Never
A leadership charter can quickly become
the manifesto that guides the actions of an
executive team or committee in their pur-
suit of results and agility. Yet many enter-
prises underestimate just how critically im-
portant it is to formulate an actual, tangible
leadership charter.
Do not make that mistake. The ROI is
clear. Those organizations willing to invest
the time and effort to establish a charter can
dramatically slash the time it takes for leader-
ship teams to be effective and unlock powerful
agility across the enterprise. IQ
Shideh Sedgh Bina is a founding partner with
Insigniam and editor in chief of Insigniam Quarterly.
SPRING 2017

T
oday’s executives are awash
in data.
Some have successfully
navigated the deluge, le-
veraging new insights to
streamline operations and
outpace the competition.
But many are left treading
water, struggling to trans-
form information into ac-
tion, says Michael Schrage, research fellow at
the MIT Center for Digital Business and visit-
ing fellow at Imperial College London. More
data—or even better data—“don’t necessarily
translate into business value.”
The data surge will only continue: The
amount of big data out there is expected to
reach 247 exabytes (EB) by 2020, a near ten-
fold increase from the 25 EB in 2015, accord-
ing to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index 2016. The
study also reported that big data alone will
represent 27 percent of the data stored in data
centers by 2020, up from 15 percent in 2015.
To ensure all this data drives the deci-
sion-making process rather than paralyzes it,
executives need more than sophisticated data
management and analytics tools. They have to
ask the right questions, homing in on factors
that will inform strategic assessments, says
Janet George, chief data scientist at San Fran-
cisco-based Western Digital.
“It’s about having extra intelligence to run
the business, create new areas of growth and
achieve data insights that streamline operational
efficiency,” she says. “It’s about becoming
smarter, faster and more agile.”
The Right Questions
Deriving strategic value begins with gathering
high-quality, relevant data. Companies that do
not identify, access and analyze the right data
end up wasting time and money. IBM, for ex-
ample, estimates poor data quality costs the
U.S. economy $3.1 trillion each year.
The best big data initiatives are engineered
around desired outcomes, Mr. Schrage says.
They should not be an excuse to produce
automated algorithms that allow executives
to abdicate or subordinate managerial de-
cisions. Instead, the initiatives should drive
better decision-making by generating infor-
mation that is measurably more relevant, ac-
curate and customized.
“Wehavetobeveryclearaboutwhatvaluewe
want to derive from the data,” Ms. George says.
To facilitate strategic data analysis and de-
liver business insights at Western Digital, Ms.
George asks big-picture questions, such as:
n Do the data have clear signals, predictive val-
ue or variables with high impact?
n Are the data fundamentally free so they can
be modeled and used by multiple applica-
tions and tools?
Executives can avoid analysis
paralysis by knowing how to
look for the right insights.
BY SAMUEL GREENGARD
Taming
IMAGEBYGREMLIN/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

“It’s about having extra
intelligence to run the
business, create new
areas of growth and
achieve data insights that
streamline operational
efficiency.”
—Janet George, chief data scientist, Western Digital
SPRING 2017

n Is it possible to tap into any or all aspects of
the data?
Taking a more holistic approach to data
management can help executives avoid getting
tunnel vision and ensure the organization has
access to the right data at the right time.
“Different dimensions of the data, when
reviewed independently, can provide a rather
skewed outcome,” Ms. George says. “Focusing
on the insights and value data provide—and
tapping into these insights as intelligence for
the business—is what creates the difference.”
Insights in Sight
Ease of access also makes a difference. The
ability to rapidly distill valuable insights from
an ocean of information can give companies
the competitive edge. Yet 73 percent of execu-
tives feel their companies need better real-time
data analysis to reach their full potential, ac-
cording to CompTIA’s 2015 Big Data Insights
and Opportunities report.
To quickly act on hot market insights, many
organizations are turning to more flexible data
management tools, Ms. George says. Using ap-
plications that pull relevant information from
multiple sources gives executives a more de-
tailed picture with which to work. The goal is
to achieve a “360-degree view of the data to
derive valuable insights,” Ms. George says.
At consumer products firm RB, business
strategy is deeply rooted in data-driven insights,
says Sharon James, Ph.D., the U.K. company’s
global head of R&D. Collecting in-depth, mul-
tifaceted information about product perfor-
mance during development and in the market-
place helps the company decode consumer de-
mands and uncover opportunities to innovate.
“Big data offer an opportunity to go be-
yond traditional consumer research methods
and use wider data insights to develop more
targeted, value-added solutions for our con-
If organizations focus on seven key practices,
they can take big strides through big data, says
Michael Schrage, research fellow at the MIT
Center for Digital Business.
1. Recognize that all data are not created equal.
Create a strategy that puts only the right data
to work in order to avoid analysis paralysis.
2. Determine whether the data can be trans-
formed into value or monetized.
3. Know whether data fit a synchronous or asyn-
chronous model. The former requires constant
connectivity while the latter involves syncing
or updating data periodically.
4. Create a governance framework that dictates
how data are collected, managed, retained,
reported and discarded.
5. Address security and privacy issues.
6. Build an IT framework that supports big data
and deploy systems that allow data to flow to
decision-makers.
7. Tap the expertise of data scientists and ana-
lysts who can think through results and frame
business opportunities.
“Big data offer an opportunity to go beyond
traditional consumer research methods and use
wider data insights to develop more targeted,
value-added solutions for our consumers.”
—Sharon James, Ph.D., global head of R&D, RB
Big Data
Best
Practices
SPRING 2017

sumers,” Dr. James says. RB, which owns
brands such as Lysol, Scholl and Air Wick,
sorts through various patterns that emerge in
sales or usage data, social listening data and
historical records. This might translate into
engineering new or better products, adding
features to products or identifying emerging
areas of opportunity for the company.
RB also integrates data insights into a plat-
form that interacts with users. Armed with
information about consumer preferences and
product use, the company can engage in more
targeted relationships and promotions. The
goal is to use data so that both the consumer
and the company benefit. Thus, RB incorpo-
rates feedback from customers to transform
“insights into action,” Dr. James says.
The Internet of Things (IoT) and small, low-
cost sensors are game changers, she adds. “They
enable us to collect whole health and lifestyle
data.” This in turn allows RB to achieve a holis-
tic view of consumer activity and monitor life
trends that span science, medicine and technolo-
gy. For instance, how do people behave and deal
with different issues throughout the day? What
common problems do they encounter? What
products aid them? “With this information, we
are able to discover and create safe, high-quality
products that really work,” Dr. James says.
But executives must also consider securi-
ty and privacy issues, because collecting and
holding highly personal information can put
both systems and customer sentiment at risk.
Even in instances when it is legal to collect
data, it is not always wise to use it, Mr. Schrage
points out. Data mining can become invasive
and reflect poorly on an organization.
One infamous example was when Target
used purchasing data to predict which of its
customers were pregnant. Coupons tailored
to expectant mothers were sent to one young
woman’s home and intercepted by her father,
who was not aware of his daughter’s situation.
Target’s data unintentionally revealed a secret
her family did not know.
Brave New World
Although organizations are already harnessing
and monetizing big data, the data revolution
has only just begun. Soon, machine learning
and artificial intelligence (AI) will disrupt to-
day’s data processes, Ms. George says.
“Over the next few years, the old methods
of collecting, storing and processing data are
going to be completely overhauled,” she says.
“Today, we collect the existing data or unite
different sources of data, then figure out how
to label it all and train machine-learning algo-
rithms for pattern recognition and predictions.
However, it’s imaginable the data could be
labeled and directly used for training using AI
and neural networks.”
Smarter computing systems will lead to
further advances in big data and predictive an-
alytics. This could include the ability to predict
behavior, have situational awareness, adapt to
changes and serve up information—from mar-
keting promotions and financial data to health
care and industrial information.
These data streams, fueled by IoT sen-
sors, social sentiment, crowdsourced data and
more, will lead to greater insights, customiza-
tion and personalization, Mr. Schrage says.
“We are moving into an era where big data
will deliver results even if we don’t understand
the causal mechanisms,” he says. “This technol-
ogy is already disrupting almost every industry
and business.” IQ
“We are moving into an era where big
data will deliver results even if we don’t
understand the causal mechanisms. The
technology will revolutionize almost
every industry and business.”
—Michael Schrage, research fellow, MIT Center for
Digital Business and visiting fellow at Imperial College London
SPRING 2017

B A L A N C E O F
GAME
CHANGERS
SPRING 2017

As deputy CEO of
BC Hydro, Chris
O’Riley knows how to
build support for big
decisions—even when
they are not popular.
BY SARAH FISTER GALE
Downtown Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada
PHOTOBYJAMESVANCOUVER/ISTOCK
SPRING 2017

IQ Insigniam Quarterly® Spring 2017 — Making the Big Decision

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