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Career paths are growing increasingly choppy. For a long time, women were the ones most affected by interruptions in their careers, often motivated by familial considerations. Today, the phenomenon extends beyond that context and is growing in scale. More and more employees are taking pauses in their careers: personal project, time for reflection, partial retraining, etc. However, it is not always easy to get back into the professional flow, which has itself not been interrupted. This challenge concerns employees as much as companies: the latter have every interest to make the most of this workforce—which often returns with renewed dynamism.

This is why certain organizations have implemented specific support programs. Mastercard and Amazon, for example, offer programs running over a 12- to 16-week duration, aimed at any new employee joining the company after taking an extended career break.  Others target this population to attract employees in areas in which they need to reinforce their capabilities. Certain subsidiaries of Avanade, an IT services company, provide financial assistance to women undertaking to retrain in the IT field. And you, what do you offer employees to get back in the saddle after a career break?

Source: Working Women and the War for Talent, Bianca Bax, Andrew Schwedel, Fai Assakul, Nicole Bitler, Bain & Company, September 2022.

Many companies have a policy of incubating new activities. However, while a great number of them manage to successfully experiment with new offerings, very few of these reach the scaling-up stage. This is partly explained by the risks inherent in innovation—but also by causes that the company could give itself the means to better control. In particular, it appears that many teams do not have a sufficiently methodical approach to anticipating large-scale deployment. Feedback from some thirty successful experiments shows that it is fruitful to consider the desired point of arrival from the outset, so as to better prepare the journey that will allow getting there:

- Equip yourself with a both precise and ambitious vision of the desired outcome. What will your project look like once deployed? Successful projects are characterized by proposing a bold vision, which notably shakes off short-term constraints.

- Starting from this target, work backwards. What skills and resources will you need to reach the target? How can you acquire them? How can you convince the desired number of customers? Review your options for achieving this: development of what already exists, acquisitions, partnerships, etc.

The idea is not to define a fixed deployment plan: uncertainty when launching a new activity is far too high. But clarifying at a very early stage the target being aimed at and the options for reaching it helps prepare the way in which to move beyond the experimentation stage.

Source: The Missing Discipline Behind Failure to Scale, Andy Binns, Christine Griffin, MIT Sloan Management Review, April 2023.

Finding meaning in one's daily missions is a growing expectation on the part of employees and a powerful lever for commitment. How can managers contribute to making their teams' work more meaningful? Research shows that they have every interest in drawing on the reactions of the people directly concerned by this work: customers, colleagues, partners, etc. Allowing employees to see the tangible effects of their work greatly fuels their commitment, more so than explaining to them why it is useful to invest themselves in this or that mission or objective. Indeed, psychologists have documented that this responds to the deep-seated need to feel that our actions have a positive impact on those around us. Here are some practices that will enable you to activate this lever:

- Create opportunities for direct exchanges between the employee and their interlocutors around questions such as: “In what ways does my work have an effect on your activity?”; “In what ways does it help you to achieve your own objectives?”

- Encourage your employees to express their gratitude to one another as soon as an opportunity arises.

- Systematically collect and disseminate testimonials that offer feedback on your employees' work, even those that may seem anecdotal.

Source: The Simple Way to Inspire Your Team, David Burkus, TEDxReno, May 2023.

And what if the role of leaders was—also—to simplify managers’ work in order to free up some of their time? Good middle managers can make all the difference, not only in ensuring the proper execution of strategy, but also in developing the teams and retaining talents. But do managers truly have the time and availability to devote themselves fully to these missions?

For example, in one healthcare company, middle managers had to handle an average of 300 requests from the head office and senior management every week. That much less attention available to support employee development! Managers' schedules were overloaded with reporting, supervisory committees and administrative tasks of every kind. The company initiated a process of pruning and sorting, starting from the managers' perspective and asking them what was really important in their eyes to allow them to accomplish their missions.

A rethinking process from which any organization would benefit from inspiring itself, to avoid the inflation of demands on managers and help them focus on what truly provides value to the organization.

Source: Are middle managers your next ace in the hole?, Emily Field, Bryan Hancock, The McKinsey Podcast, August 2023.

How can you best prepare to become a leader in a context marked by ever-increasing uncertainty and complexity? That was the question Roselinde Torres, a leadership expert and consultant for the Boston Consulting Group, asked herself. To answer it, she studied the leadership programs of numerous organizations and tracked the career paths of individuals who succeeded or failed as they took on leadership roles. According to her, a central characteristic that sets those who succeed apart is the cultivation of a highly diversified network. This enables them to develop the ability to interact with a wide variety of profiles, but also to factor different perspectives into their decision-making.

The idea that it is important for a leader to cultivate their networks is nothing new. But it is really the notion of diversification that is central here. You surely have affinity networks in which you recognize yourself and feel at ease. But do you reach beyond them? Are you training yourself sufficiently in developing relationships with people who do not share the same points of view as you, the same frames of reference, the same perceptions? Regularly reviewing your networks is an essential reflex to turn them into a strategic asset. 

Source: What it takes to be a great leader, Roselinde Torres, TED@BCG San Francisco, February 2014.