The Best of This Week

Is Your Organization Fit for Data?

Why does progress in the data space continue to be so slow? The steps needed to build better organizations for data will differ between companies, but nine key factors must be addressed in order to advance any organization’s data initiatives.

Great Strategy Looks Beyond Traditional Stakeholders

In traditional shareholder capitalism, the only stakeholders that have mattered are investors, as the providers of financial capital, and customers, as the source of revenue. But great strategy recognizes the significance of other valuable stakeholders, namely employees, business partners, and local communities.
 

How COVID-19 Conquered AI

In the early days of the pandemic, the AI community used data emerging from China to develop predictive tools that many believed would bring much-needed support to the medical front lines. But a new report finds that none of the tools made a real difference — and some were potentially harmful.

Strategic Choices to Support Working Parents

New research exposes the conflicts working parents may face when weighing concerns about their careers and where they live and work, highlighting the significance of company real estate decisions for talent recruitment and retention. Five recommendations can help business leaders attract and retain working parents.

What Else We’re Reading This Week

• Cutting carbon emissions in heavy transport and industrial heat can be done profitably (Source: MIT SMR)
• Twenty expert tips for improved meetings (Source: First Round Review)
• How to make friends at work — remotely (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
• Five common productivity systems, compared (Source: The Washington Post)

Quote of the Week:

“A decade has passed since the term digital transformation was coined, but it has taken a life-changing pandemic for digital capabilities to substantively alter how businesses operate.”

— Matthew Doan, digital leadership strategist, in “Don’t Let Digital Obsession Destroy Your Organization”