Five Fifty

Your five-minute briefing—
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High five: Scrolling through 2024

From navigating the CEO journey to boosting employee engagement to discovering your company’s superpower, here are this year’s highlights from the Five Fifty.

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1. Mindful motivation

The journey to the top starts with prioritizing the organization over personal gain. The most successful CEO candidates have the right motivations and attributes to support this goal.
An animation of a female business executive ascending a structure with different sets of steps leading to the top. Along her path to the top, the executive encounters various circular icons, which, after the executive touches them, spin to reveal accompanying images. The icons represent the different stages of the executive’s CEO journey.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
The CEO journey: Finding success at every stage

2. Generate to innovate

Today’s leading companies excel at both innovation and growth, using the latest tech, such as generative AI, to keep their competitive edge.
An animation of a light bulb growing from within the skyline of a city. As the light bulb grows larger amid the skyline, it sparkles and shines and reveals an office building inside of it.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Are you an innovative grower?

3. Are we human?

Companies that take a human-centered approach to AI—with the goal of augmenting humanity, not replacing it—can better unleash the power of the technology and the people who use it.
An animation of different groups of workers collaborating among various technology-related imagery, including parts of a circuit board, graph lines, and digital dialogue boxes.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Gen AI’s second wave

4. What’s your archetype?

Addressing employee disengagement begins with identifying where workers fall on the satisfaction spectrum: least satisfied and least committed, thriving, or somewhere in the middle.
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Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Engage your workforce

5. From zero to superhero

The best companies set themselves apart from the rest by building a distinctive capability, or superpower, across six critical elements.
An illustrated animation of a cube that expands and reveals a glowing sphere in its center.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Unleashing your superpower

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This edition was edited by Drew Holzfeind and Kanika Punwani, with design and data visualization by Jessica Wang, Maya Kaplun, and Stephen Landau and web production by Katrina Parker.
An animation of a female business executive ascending a structure with different sets of steps leading to the top. Along her path to the top, the executive encounters various circular icons, which, after the executive touches them, spin to reveal accompanying images. The icons represent the different stages of the executive’s CEO journey.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
The CEO journey: Finding success at every stage
An animation of a light bulb growing from within the skyline of a city. As the light bulb grows larger amid the skyline, it sparkles and shines and reveals an office building inside of it.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Are you an innovative grower?
An animation of different groups of workers collaborating among various technology-related imagery, including parts of a circuit board, graph lines, and digital dialogue boxes.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Gen AI’s second wave
" "
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Engage your workforce
An illustrated animation of a cube that expands and reveals a glowing sphere in its center.
Interactive - McKinsey Quarterly
Unleashing your superpower