The Best of This Week

Six Ways Companies Can Promote and Protect Human Rights

The extent to which corporations should react to human rights abuses by governments in their host and home countries has become one of the most dynamic discussions in the field of corporate responsibility. Companies have effective options beyond standing by or cutting ties.

When Cost Cutting, Keep Your Focus on Customers

The pandemic is forcing many B2B companies to cut costs, but conventional approaches to cost reduction may not serve them well. Instead, leaders should intensify their focus on customers by identifying the small, select group of customer value drivers in their companies and strategically cut costs.
 

Keeping Your Team’s Political Conversations Peaceful

Today’s politics seem increasingly divisive, and because it’s hard to compartmentalize political life from the rest of life, conversations between colleagues with differing views can get heated. This article offers strategies for managers to help maintain cohesion between teammates with opposing political views.

Employee Surveillance: Can It Be Done Ethically?

Long-term remote work has led to questions about monitoring employee productivity. Managers claim these surveillance measures provide valuable information about organizational productivity, but many workers harbor concerns about privacy and security. How can companies practice ethical surveillance?

How the Lockdown Unlocked Real Work

The global remote work experiment, driven by the pandemic, has revealed considerable untapped potential for major improvements in productivity and performance. Realizing that potential calls for a fundamental change in how managers approach their relationships and interactions with their people. Managers can nurture the value-adding relationships of leadership, engagement, and cooperation with these seven steps.

What Else We’re Reading This Week

• “Collaboration between the machine and the person is very important.” Mattias Ulbrich, CIO of Porsche and CEO of Porsche Digital, discusses how AI can drive change in business, engineering, and society in MIT SMR’s latest “Me, Myself, & AI” podcast.
• The digital health ecosystem is currently booming, but to survive and thrive, innovation partnerships will have to span international borders
• “Category kings” make three common but avoidable mistakes that open the door to competitors

Quote of the Week:

“The payoff for encouraging individuality and supporting inclusivity cannot be overestimated.”

— Ryan Bonnici, chief marketing officer of G2, in “Why Pronouns Speak To More Than Just Gender Differences”