Monthly Highlights

In an era of unprecedented uncertainty, leaders can no longer rely on outdated playbooks. In our first featured story, McKinsey’s Bob Sternfels, Daniel Pacthod, Kurt Strovink, and Wyman Howard explore what it will take to be a leader for this century and how organizations can build a leadership factory that shapes, develops, and mentors the next generation of managers.

Technology officers are adapting their strategies to ensure their organizations capitalize on the transformative trends impacting global businesses. This is a pivotal opportunity for growth, but it demands clear focus and capability development. In our featured story, McKinsey’s Aamer Baig, Jeffrey Lewis, Klemens Hjartar, Rob Cain, and Sven Blumberg reveal a set of shifts that tech officers can make to meet the demands of business leaders.

While many of the practices and outcomes that have defined organizational health have not changed since McKinsey launched the Organizational Health Index (OHI) in 2003, the dynamics of the workplace have evolved.

Given the rapid pace of tech advancements—and the tech-related disruptions companies need to navigate—planning for the long-term tech future might seem daunting. But that’s exactly what companies must do, say McKinsey’s Lareina Yee, Michael Chui, Roger Roberts, and Mena Issler.

Generative AI (gen AI) has the potential to profoundly alter our professional and personal lives, says Silicon Valley pioneer Reid Hoffman, who chatted with McKinsey’s Lareina Yee for a new episode of the At the Edge podcast. In this month’s featured story, Hoffman explains why he envisions the technology as not only a tool for individual tasks but also one that enhances collective team effectiveness, optimizes workflows, and facilitates decision making within organizations.

By 2030, about 27 percent of current hours worked in Europe and 30 percent of hours worked in the United States could be automated, accelerated by generative AI (gen AI). Europe could require up to 12 million occupational transitions, double the pace observed before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, required transitions could reach almost 12 million, in line with the prepandemic norm.

McKinsey research has estimated that generative AI (gen AI) has the potential to add up to $4.4 trillion in economic value to the global economy. But companies are quickly realizing that capturing this value is harder than expected. There’s also a growing recognition that gen AI opportunities are accompanied by considerable risks.

McKinsey research has estimated that generative AI (gen AI) has the potential to add up to $4.4 trillion in economic value to the global economy. But companies are quickly realizing that capturing this value is harder than expected.

The CEO role is challenging, demanding, and important—particularly in today’s uniquely tough operating environment. But how are CEOs actually performing, and what can they do to reach their full potential? As we approach the second anniversary of the release of CEO Excellence, the best-selling book by McKinsey’s Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, we look at how CEOs can succeed across their leadership journey.

Global trade patterns are reconfiguring, and increased investment into a range of developing economies suggests further trade reconfiguration in coming years. What can business leaders do to position their organizations for uncertainty? In a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Jeongmin Seong, Olivia White, Michael Birshan, Lola Woetzel, and coauthors explore shifts in the geometry of global trade—and their many implications.

As leaders kick off the new year, which issues will top their agendas? In our featured story this month, Homayoun Hatami, managing partner, global client capabilities, and Liz Hilton Segel, chief client officer and managing partner, present eight priorities for CEOs in 2024, which include generative AI, outcompeting with technology, the energy transition, geopolitical resilience, and more.

Though momentum has been meaningful, the world is still not on track to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which include limiting the rise of global warming to well below 2.0°C (and ideally to no more than 1.5°C) relative to preindustrial levels. How can stakeholders reduce the odds of initiating the most catastrophic impacts of climate change? As global leaders gather for COP28, the United Nations’ annual conference on climate change, check out this month’s first featured story from McKinsey’s Mekala Krishnan, Sven Smit, Humayun Tai, Daniel Pacthod, Tomas Nauclér, Blake Houghton, Jesse Noffsinger, and Dirk Simon.

While women have been making strides in the C-suite, workplaces have a long way to go before achieving true gender parity, according to the latest Women in the Workplace report, coauthored by McKinsey’s Emily Field, Alexis Krivkovich, and Lareina Yee, in partnership with LeanIn.Org.

Gen AI may be in its nascent stages of development, but the technology is only going to get more intelligent. How can organizations do more than just “keep up”?

According to a recent McKinsey survey, one-third of respondents said their organizations are using generative AI regularly in at least one business function, and 40 percent of respondents noted their organizations will increase their investment in AI overall.

The first half of 2023 has seen a resurgence of enthusiasm about technology’s potential to catalyze progress in business and society—and generative AI (gen AI) deserves much of the credit for this revival.

Generative AI is poised to unleash the next wave of productivity. We take a first look at where business value could accrue and the potential impacts on the workforce.

What does leadership look like in an era where turbulence and disruption are the norm? It’s not the model we’re used to.

Starting with the 2008 financial crisis, CEOs have had to deal with one game-changing external disruption after another. To manage through constant volatility, CEOs of the future will need nimble courage, write senior partners Celia Huber, Ishaan Seth, and Kurt Strovink.

Senior partners Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, authors of CEO Excellence, along with senior partner Kurt Strovink, asked the world’s top-performing CEOs which trends will have the biggest impact on how they lead their business in 2023 compared with past years.

In the past year, leaders have been confronted with a lifetime’s worth of disruption and crises: global conflict, energy uncertainty, food shortages, accelerating inflation, and severe climate events. Natural and human-made disruptions will only persist. To enable long-term, sustainable, and inclusive growth, today’s business leaders and policy makers must strengthen resilience beyond a survival capacity.

The first month of the new year is in the rearview, and we didn’t quite get the fresh start we were hoping for. Between geopolitical stress, climate change, and macroeconomic uncertainty—topics that were front and center at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos—the business environment remains turbulent in 2023. Where does the world go from here?

As much as we’d like to leave the turmoil of 2022 behind, much of it will endure into the new year. The world is still reeling from shocks in geopolitics, economics, and energy. But amid the challenges and uncertainty, hopeful prospects remain.

Managing complex organizations is much harder today than it was just a few years ago, write Homayoun Hatami, McKinsey global leader of capabilities practices, and Liz Hilton Segel, McKinsey global leader of industry practices. How can CEOs decide what needs to be done now and what can wait?

Today’s events—a global pandemic, energy scarcity, rapid inflation, and geopolitical tensions—might feel like a cluster of earthquakes that is reshaping our world. Are we in the early throes of a seismic shift?

Recent seismic events in Europe—including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy and cost-of-living crisis—underscore the importance of building long-term resilience in the region. But unless Europe addresses its technology gap, the region will be vulnerable across all sectors on growth and competitiveness, as well as security and strategic strength.

This month, our featured stories look at the why of ESG (that is, why ESG matters to companies), as well as the how of ESG (that is, how companies can take a more systematic and rewarding approach to ESG).

This month, our featured stories look at the five crucial employee personas that companies must understand to solve the attrition and attraction problem for the longer term, as well as the value of internal mobility among workers.

As humans, we each have a unique living, breathing set of capabilities. We also have an innate set of fears: in the workplace, this can translate to fear of criticism, fear of uncertainty, and fear of harming one’s career.

As the war in Ukraine persists, disruptions on a range of fronts are gathering force, and could reshape industries and economies. This month, our featured stories dive into the potential strength and direction of these shifts and their effects on lives and livelihoods, as well as the war’s possible ramifications on the key requirements for a more orderly net-zero transition.

What exactly is the metaverse, and why should your organization be paying attention to it? This month, our featured stories dive into this developing phenomenon as well as the realities facing companies looking to hire—and keep—top tech talent.

This month, our featured stories offer an initial framing of the challenges caused by the war, a perspective on the short- and midterm disruptions, and scenarios for the potential impact on livelihoods in the eurozone.

This month, our featured stories offer leadership lessons from 67 CEOs of some of the world’s most successful companies and lay out the shared character traits that enable the best leaders to navigate inevitable storms.

This month, our featured stories look at why high-quality collaboration is key to getting work done, as well as why women in corporate America are exhausted, stressed, and burned out—and what leadership can do to avoid a talent crisis.

This month, our featured stories explore how corporate, government, and society leaders can achieve growth that's sustainable and inclusive and growing, as well as how stakeholders need to evolve to manage COVID-19 as an endemic disease.