One of the most recent trends in professional baseball has been hiring very smart, “Ivy League-educated” General Managers to run and lead the entire team’s strategy development and execution.

As a training and development professional, I must pause to ask the question, “Can leaders lead things they have never done?”

The reason for my question is that I work with some clients, and the progression to the C-suite takes 25+ years, doing work from the bottom up. The idea is that you can’t be an executive leader unless you have done the job and know how things really work. At the same time, I work with other clients who have a mandate for hiring fresh new thinking from “outside of the industry,” and the classic example of that is executives who worked in Consulting but have never actually been in the business.

I talked with senior leaders in my network to gain perspectives and ideas. I’m happy to share three reasons why they think it can work and three reasons why they don’t think it can work.

This week finds me conducting a really innovative Strategic Business Selling program for Strategic Account Managers.

This week's agenda includes best practices for email follow-ups, which is an opportunity to address something that I have noticed with many Sales Professionals during the last several months.

I’ve noticed too many Sales professionals starting their follow-up email with:

“I just wanted to follow up…”

It’s been bothering me for a while, so I conducted some research and am sharing my thoughts and findings.

Advantexe currently has two different pharmaceutical omnichannel business acumen simulations in development. We are also giving two of our other core pharmaceutical business simulations “facelifts” to integrate more omnichannel marketing decisions, issues, challenges, and opportunities.

As our design team conducts the research and talks with the subject matter experts within our client organizations about omnichannel marketing, we have noticed several interesting trends that I believe are blog-worthy.

I had the privilege of listening to the President and CEO of a global high-tech manufacturing company share his insights on leadership last Friday, as the stock market was imploding and the foundation of his company was being shaken to its core.

One of the first things he shared with a group of high-potential leaders who had just finished a week-long business simulation-centric training program to develop their business acumen and business leadership skills was, “Don’t be a victim.”

I thought a lot about what he shared on the flight home from California and over the weekend. Sharing some insights and hopefully additional key learnings on a very interesting topic.

In a world where change is constant and decisions are rarely black and white, problem-solving isn’t just a skill; it’s a survival tool.

Today’s business environment is anything but simple. Leaders are navigating unpredictable markets, shifting technologies, and rising stakeholder expectations. In this complexity, one core capability stands out: the ability to solve problems.

Problem-solving enables organizations to recognize issues, adapt to change, drive innovation, and deliver results. It’s what helps a company stay resilient when facing disruption, and what empowers leaders to make confident decisions even when the data is incomplete or unclear.

However, here’s the problem with problem-solving: it’s not a valued skill today as it was in the past.

Many leaders feel too busy to address issues thoroughly. The pace of change makes it tempting to jump to conclusions or fire off quick fixes. And let’s be honest, most people never actually learned how to solve problems well. Training often focuses on technical skills or strategy, rather than the messy, iterative, and collaborative process that real problem-solving requires.