Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

by Andy Molinsky, Thomas H. Davenport, Bala Iyer and Cathy N. Davidson

From the Magazine (January–February 2012)

Summary.

The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today’s networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Andy Molinsky is the Peter A.Petri Chair in Business and Society and professor of organizational behavior and international management at Brandeis University’s School of Business and Economics and the author of Global Dexterity, Reach, and Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce. Connect with him on LinkedIn and download his free e-booklet of 7 myths about working effectively across cultures.

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and faculty director of the Metropoulos Institute for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer Program.

Bala Iyer is a professor and chair of the Technology, Operations, and Information Management Division at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Follow him on Twitter @BalaIyer.

Cathy N. Davidson teaches at Duke, where she co-directs the HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. Her new book is Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.

Read more on Cross-cultural management or related topics Professional networks, Managing yourself and Social media

Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

Summary.

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