Four Blueprints for Ensemble Decision-Making

When making a decision, two heads can be better than one, but two – or even more – perspectives are definitely better than one, especially in today’s dynamic and widely different global markets. These authors call it ensemble decision making and they describe four patterns and three steps for making it work.

Leadership Ensembles: Orchestrating the Global Company

Companies can no longer rely on single individuals at the top to handle the complexity and uncertainty of the global environment. Instead, they need “leadership ensembles”—teams that can capitalize on diversity, stay current with developments in different parts of the world while anticipating future trends and their implications, and make smart decisions without sacrificing speed.

Leadership ensembles are groups of executives, each with distinctive expertise and … [ Read more ]

Global Leadership Teams: What’s Missing at the Top

Most organizations and most boards of directors recognize the need for integration at the top but they also know that integration is elusive and often temporary. Research—still in its early stages—by the Accenture Institute for High Performance, has begun to identify the behaviors, the composition and the cognitive styles associated with global top management teams that achieve high performance.

The questions are tough: should top management … [ Read more ]