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In recent years, three big trends – declining resources, radical transparency, and increasing expectations – have redefined the way we do business. With these new pressures on our hands, what is business to do? Only a few companies choose to embed sustainability into their very DNA, incorporating environmental, health, and social value into their core business with no trade-offs in price or quality. Yet, those that do are creating even more value for their customers and investors than they otherwise would.  

Article provides the background to arts and leadership development at the IEDC-Bled School of Management. 

Article tries to outline a new leadership requirement characterized by the ability of the Public and Private sectors leaders to have a good grasp of what’s happening in the world today, why it is happening and, more important, how it can serve our purpose as human beings. 

Interview with Dr. Colin Egan, published in Podjetnik, Slovenia 

Success can be a curse rather than a blessing for leaders if they become complacent about their performance, say Pierre Casse and Eoin Banahan… 

On November 19, 2009 Peter Drucker, the greatest management thinker in the world, would have celebrated his 100th birthday. In honour of his anniversary, many international conferences were organised all around the world, and one of the most important ones in Vienna. The gurus in management and leadership were invited to speak about Drucker (Kotler, Prahalad, Handy, Simon, etc.), but the biggest impression was made by the 98 years old wife of Peter Drucker, Dr. Doris Drucker, with her vitality and wisdom 

Capitalist society with free market economy supposed to be the most effective driver of economic growth and prosperity. When supply and demand forces freely drive the prices and profits, business decision making is the most effective, value created is the highest and distributed across economic entities and individuals according to entrepreneurial drive, superiority of business ideas, financial resources, knowledge and other resources as well as according to willingness to take risk and postpone current consumption for future consumption 

It is, perhaps, the oldest of human traits – the skill we have been developing for thousands of years. Or, possibly, the most modern business obsession – the panacea for all of our troubles. Whichever way you look at it, innovation is all around us: whether it is a short-term need for inventing our way out of the global economic crisis, or a long-term necessity for daily re-discovery of business models and solutions, innovation is fast becoming front and central to the life of a modern manager. It is not surprising that the recent survey by the European Foundation for Management Development shows that among key business challenges leaders are facing today innovation has a leading place – second only to revenue growth, and far ahead of economic factors and management of costs, the standard issues of difficult times. What is surprising, however, is how rarely successful innovation actually happens - despite the high priority on executives’ agenda, inventing new business opportunities inside and outside of an organization is no easy matter. 

In a sun-lit classroom of IEDC-Bled School of Management, a group of senior managers is hard at work. At a first glance, the intense discussions and strong arguments might appear as a typical problem-solving exercise: take a problem, understand the factors of failure, and propose a decision. But what if you listen closely, you might find yourself amidst a very different conversation. 

It is safe to say that dogma, or any form of unquestioned belief, is bad for human progress. Collectively, as human family, we have been through enough of witch-hunting, world-is-flat executions, and parallel-lines-never-cross illusions to realize that it is good to question our assumptions, even if only to find them to be correct. That is why it surprises me that one particular assumption has been put at the corner of our entire business life without much questioning. Yes, I am talking about value