Latest news with #Esade
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Perfectionist Leaders Stifle Creativity
When do perfectionistic leaders undermine creativity? By Anna Carmella Ocampo, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Esade. A leader's perfectionistic demands can be a double-edged sword, either enhancing or diminishing their employees' performance. Take the case of Steve Jobs, who was commonly described as a tireless perfectionist. Some viewed his pursuit of perfection, marked by his unrealistically high standards, intolerance for mistakes, and insistence on working with only the best people, as the driving force behind Apple's success. Many condemned his rigid perfectionistic demands, as they often came with angry outbursts when others fell short of his expectations. These tendencies fueled misunderstandings and personal tirades, which heightened existing strategic disagreements with others that ultimately contributed to his dismissal. In his second stint as CEO, Jobs was still described as a relentless perfectionist who never compromised his work standards. This time, however, his perfectionism was accompanied by less anger and fewer temper tantrums. Andy Herzfeld, the lead designer of the original Macintosh operating system, believed that Jobs' perfectionism now inspired 'astounding effort and creativity from his people.' Perfectionism has become increasingly common in highly industrialized countries and is sometimes endorsed by modern organizations. The hypercompetitive economic landscape has driven leaders to adopt rigid performance evaluations, defining success primarily by the absence of mistakes or by outcompeting their colleagues. Hence, perfectionistic leaders have become notorious for refusing to make concessions even when presented with reasonably acceptable alternative solutions to a given problem. While the survival of organizations rests on employees' ability to innovate, perfectionistic leaders fail to acknowledge that creative output is an iterative process. They narrowly view mistakes as costly and unnecessary, preventing their employees from taking risks and thinking outside the box. When do perfectionistic leaders undermine creativity? To address this question, I collaborated with colleagues from universities in Canada, Australia, and China to conduct three research studies, published in 2025. The first study involved 229 working adults from the United States who recalled their experiences working with a perfectionistic leader who also frequently expressed anger. The second study was a controlled laboratory experiment conducted with 119 students from the Philippines, where they were instructed by perfectionistic leaders to generate creative ideas to revive a once-famous local band. Finally, in the third study, we surveyed 61 teams, comprising 61 actual leaders and 296 employees, working in a high-technology company in China. Collectively, we found consistent evidence that perfectionistic leaders who frequently express intense anger toward their employees hinder efforts that propel creativity. Perfectionistic expectations, expressed alongside anger, impede employees' sense of psychological safety in the workplace, where they fear ridicule and disrespect for exploring untested solutions to address problems. Although leaders' insistence on achieving perfection may be well-intentioned, the challenge lies in conveying their high standards in a constructive, yet possibly compassionate, manner. Scholars are still uncovering important questions about the antecedents and consequences of leader perfectionism. Our findings, along with research from related fields, provide guidance on how to reduce the downsides of perfectionism while harnessing its potential benefits. The pursuit of perfection is a contentious process. Too often, leaders may fall into the trap of placing perfectionistic demands on their employees. When their work is considered inadequate, a perfectionistic leader's anger can threaten psychological safety in the workplace. This discourages employees from exploring different and unconventional ideas that are crucial to creativity. Our findings serve as a cautionary note for leaders, emphasizing that perfectionism and anger can compromise employees' efforts and performance.
Local Spain
30-04-2025
- General
- Local Spain
Does Spain have a catchment area system for public schools?
It's likely that schools in Spain work differently to how they do back in your country, so you'll want to do in-depth research before you arrive so that your children can transition smoothly. As well as the challenge of having to learn a new language, you'll have to first learn how enrolling your kids works and how to choose the best school for them. One of the most common questions foreign parents have is if you can just pick any public school or if there is a catchment area system for state schools. After all, in many countries this determines where families choose to live. To make matters more complicated, the school system works slightly differently in each region in Spain too, as they're each managed by a different education department. The general rule across Spain is that families can choose any public school anywhere within their region, if there are spaces available. The main exception is in Murcia, where you can only choose a public or private school within your municipality. According to the recent study 'Diversity and Freedom: Reducing School Segregation by Respecting the Ability to Choose School' prepared by renowned Spanish business university Esade and NGO Save the Children, 'Spain is among the countries with the highest levels of freedom of school choice'. Nevertheless, just because you can choose any school you want doesn't mean that you'll always get your first choice. Does where you live make a difference? Some colegios públicos (public schools) will have more potential applicants than there are spaces. In this case, a score system may be used to determine who gets the spot. Generally, points are awarded for having a sibling at the school, proximity to your place of residence or a parent's workplace and income. In these instances, it will be more advantageous to live near your preferred school, so in some ways there is a type of catchment area, but it's not defined. Keep in mind though, each region has its own regulations on how their point systems work. For example, according to Cynthia Martínez-Garrido, professor of Research Methods at Madrid's Autónoma University, schools in the capital region don't place so much importance on proximity; siblings going to the same institution plays a much bigger role. Madrid places a big emphasis on freedom of choice and allows all children to select wherever they want, regardless of catchment area, socioeconomic status or other. In Andalusia, proximity is more highly valued, though. If your home nearer to the school, you'll receive fourteen points, and ten if it's within the bordering area. In the case of proximity to the parents' workplace, ten points if it's within the same area, and six if it's within the bordering area. Most regions in Spain - except for La Rioja, the Basque Country and Valencia - use what's known as the Boston mechanism. This is the algorithm that makes the school assignment system give greater importance to families' first choice. So this again, could be more important than where you live. As mentioned though, you won't always be given your first choice, so it's key to keep your options open. Timing is also an important factor on deciding if you'll get your child into your first choice school, not only proximity. For example, in Catalonia, to be admitted to a publicly funded school for the first time, or to change schools, you must pre-register. This application is submitted a few months before the start of the school year, usually between March and April. So if you don't get this application in at the right time or are moving to Spain later on in the year, then it might not matter if you live near a school or not, it will only matter if they have available places. According to the Catalan education system 'School places are allocated first through a points system (based on proximity to the school, financial and family circumstances, etc.) and then through a lottery if there is more demand than supply of places at a school'. To sum up, it will help if you live nearer to your preferred school, but it's not always the most important factor and it will greatly depend on which region you live in too.
Forbes
28-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Companies Can Turn AI Disruption Into Competitive Advantage
Embracing disruption as a key to success Ivan Bofarull is Chief Innovation Officer at Esade and book author of 'Moonshot Thinking' We are undeniably facing a transformative era driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), with profound implications for companies. In its latest 'Request for Startups', Y Combinator — the Silicon Valley accelerator — emphasized a focus on 'startups building tools that allow small businesses to operate at the level of large corporations'. Meanwhile, Ark Invest's Cathie Wood predicts an 'epochal shift' in organizational performance due to AI-driven automation. We are no longer dealing with episodic disruption; we are entering an era where disruption becomes a continuous process, orchestrated by autonomous AI agents. Imagine business strategy evolving as rapidly as high-frequency algorithmic trading in financial markets, with companies constantly playing catch-up. In light of this scenario, are organizations truly ready to navigate a business environment defined by constant disruption? Despite decades of literature on disruptive innovation, many companies still struggle to react effectively to it. This ongoing challenge persists due to several factors: Drawing on 30 years of corporate longevity research, a comparative analysis reveals three consistent traits among companies that thrive amid different waves of disruption: In an AI-driven economy, companies must go beyond merely reacting to disruption. They need to become disruption-friendly organizations, capable of turning uncertainty into a strategic advantage. Building on these findings, companies in the AI era should master at least three core mechanisms: In a world of endless disruption, companies must develop a curated portfolio of strategic bets, what I call Selective Optionality. This is where the role of a strategic scout becomes critical. Many organizations fail to adapt to disruption because they have rigid strategic plans that quickly become obsolete. Instead, they need directionality—a flexible but clear trajectory that allows for adaptive course correction. To build asymmetric capabilities is to create differentiation that AI alone cannot replicate. One of the most pressing debates today is how AI influences human decision-making, and whether it reinforces conventional wisdom or enables truly original insights. This is a crucial discussion, as corporate history is littered with companies that did what seemed right, aligning with industry's best practices and data-driven consensus, only to fail or stagnate. As Ray Dalio famously noted, success often requires betting against consensus and being right. The true upside lies in contrarian positions that prove correct. However, AI's fundamental design is to extrapolate from past data, reinforcing prevailing patterns rather than generating truly novel insights. Even when prompted to be "contrarian," AI remains predictably contrarian, mimicking known counterarguments rather than crafting genuinely asymmetric beliefs. The AI era does not need managers who simply follow benchmarks or industry norms. Instead, it demands leaders who: Asymmetric beliefs fuel exponential improvements, and these breakthroughs create defensible competitive moats. This is because a high-risk technological leap, if successful, often reduces market risk, accelerating adoption at scale. In the context of AI-driven transformation, a clear takeaway emerges: companies that succeed will be those that: Moats may be eroding in an era of hyper-competition, but AI is also creating new windows of opportunity, ones that are deeply rooted in human ingenuity, not machine-driven predictability.
