In her fascinating book entitled The Silo Effect; The Peril Of Expertise And The Promise Of Breaking Down Barriers author Gillian Tett– a social anthropologist, an award-winning journalist and a senior editor for the Financial Times — describes far too many… Read More ›
executive leadership
SPEAK IN PLAIN LANGUAGE
If you work for an organization of reasonable size you understand what I mean when I say that management often speaks in gobble-de-gook. This is a language that often turns management initiatives into alphabetical acronyms like ADIM (Advanced Data Information Management) or… Read More ›
THINKING AND ACTING FORWARD
Tradition is a very powerful and important thing. It is a glue that helps hold nations, societies, families and organizations together. Traditions are a source of pride, we celebrate them, we defend them, and we hold on to them because… Read More ›
THE MANAGER’S MAGIC FORMULA
On several occasions in this series of articles I have used the phrase “there is no magic formula” to make the point that a given situation or problem has many potential avenues of redress, none of which carries the guarantee… Read More ›
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: ORGANIZE AROUND NETWORKS
“Networks, — social, neural, physical, metaphorical — enable connectedness and connectedness changes everything. Networks compress distances and time, that concentration speeds up life, and that, in turn, creates sociological and economic change” (“The New Victorian Age”, by Om Malik, Fast Company, May 2015, P. 38…. Read More ›
MERGING ORGANIZATIONS? MERGE PEOPLE AND FAST
Over the years I have observed — up close and from afar — numerous company, business and agency mergers. None of them ever went as smoothly as promised. A few well-managed mergers produced minimal pain, while some others had their human victims… Read More ›
KEEPING YOUR WORKFORCE ENGAGED
I have been following yearly surveys focused on the topic of “Workforce Engagement” for the last fifteen years. These surveys have varied in their methodologies and organizational authors. Some focused exclusively on the United States, while others offered a global perspective…. Read More ›
AT WORK OR WORKING?
The term “knowledge workforce” refers to those individuals who make their living primarily by developing and using KNOWLEDGE in their daily work. The knowledge workers are our planners, analyzers, organizers, programmers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, marketers and designers whose contributions transform our business, commerce and… Read More ›
BALANCING THE VISIONARY AND THE PRACTICAL
Having a vision for the future of your organization, a big idea, a grand goal! It is hard to argue against the importance of these things when it comes to inspirational management and leadership and to the success and continued relevance… Read More ›
DON’T ASK IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO ACT ON WHAT YOU HEAR
I recently encountered the following story. A supervisor initiated an employee opinion survey designed, among other things, to identify what the staff thought of their performance as a manager. The supervisor promised the responses would be anonymous and had arranged to have another staff… Read More ›