18 Posts found for Author: Chris Gagnon

If I were to lay out the requirements for a great leader, having a clear cultural aspiration and a plan to drive it through the organization would be really near the top of my list.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Culture, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The success of hallmark cultures is that they read one of these groups of [business] books that hung together with a consistent philosophy, and they really, really stuck with it. A little bit of best practice here, a little bit of best practice there will get you killed.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Culture, Organizational Behavior

Every company has to include technology. Technology is there to enable people. But I’ll tell you, what’s really important is people. An organization is designed to organize people and their work and their efforts. Almost all the things that we discuss as keys or imperatives can be enabled by technology, but they’re designed to help people perform. At the heart of this thinking is humanism, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Organizational Behavior

As the business environment has become more complex and interconnected in recent years, many companies have mirrored these changes in their organizational structures, creating an ever-more convoluted matrix. Unwittingly, they are betting on organizational complexity to solve market complexity.

This is a losing bet. Future-ready organizations, by contrast, structure themselves in ways that make them fitter, flatter, faster, and far better at unlocking considerable value. Their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Leaders hoping to create a robust performance culture need to start by cooking up their organization’s own unique “secret sauce.” The main ingredient: specific, observable behaviors that employees at all levels of the company adhere to.

Broad themes won’t cut it. Instead, behaviors must be made an integral part of core business activities and specific work tasks, especially for the moments that matter.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

While all companies have a strategy for how they create value, few can show precisely how the organization will achieve it. Future-ready companies, by contrast, avoid this dilemma by creating a value agenda—a map that disaggregates a company’s ambitions and targets into tangible organizational elements such as business units, regions, product lines, and even key capabilities. Armed with such a depiction, these companies can articulate … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Ronald Coase argued that corporations exist to avoid the transaction costs of the free market. Yet with transaction costs plummeting (spurred by rising connectivity) this rationale no longer holds up. Why, then, do companies exist?

The answer is identity. People long to belong, and they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Companies that fixate only on profits will lose ground to organizations that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: General, History

Ask executives about their company and you can expect to be shown an organization chart. No wonder. The management concepts that the org chart visualizes—coordination, hierarchy, a matrixed organization—are the ones leaders grew up with and know best, as did generations before them. The original org chart hails from 1854, and was introduced to help run the New York and Erie Railroad during the age of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

From project-based work to a lack of hierarchy, the way people work is changing fast. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, Chris Gagnon and Elizabeth Mygatt talk about what it takes for companies to be “future ready”

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Diane Brady, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Companies should embrace nine imperatives that collectively explain “who we are” as an organization, “how we operate,” and “how we grow.”

Content: Article | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Organizations are more likely to innovate and thrive when they unleash the potential of individuals and the power of self-organizing teams, says the online retailer’s CEO.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Tony Hsieh | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: Zappos.com

When seeking to understand and address these [organizational] mind-sets, we like to use the image of an iceberg popularized by MIT academics Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer. Above the surface (the tip of the iceberg) is the visible behavior repeated and reinforced by the organization every day. Under the surface are employees’ thoughts and feelings (both conscious and unconscious); their values and beliefs (the things … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Given all the data and practical experience that supports working on [organizational] health, companies’ obsession with the P&L alone continues to puzzle us. It’s right that leaders manage their P&L meticulously, but why not do the same for their health? In fact, why not measure health frequently throughout the year, since it’s a leading indicator of performance, whereas financial results are a lagging one? Similarly, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management, Organizational Behavior

We think of organizational health as more than just culture or employee engagement. It’s the organization’s ability to align around a common vision, execute against that vision effectively, and renew itself through innovation and creative thinking. Put another way, health is how the ship is run, no matter who is at the helm and what waves rock the vessel.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Why do companies need to be more nimble? McKinsey’s Aaron De Smet and Chris Gagnon explain what’s driving organizational agility, why it matters, and what to do.

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Working on health works. It’s good for your people and for your bottom line.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Organizational Behavior

McKinsey’s leadership staircase is a pyramid of behavior analogous to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy, like similar ones, some kinds of behavior are always essential. As organizational health improves, quartile to quartile, additional behaviors become apparent. More tellingly, some appear to be differentiators: emphasizing them in different situations can lift the organizational health of a fourth-quartile company to the third quartile, a third-quartile … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Chris Gagnon, Michael Bazigos | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Leadership

New research shows that the trick for companies is to combine speed with stability.

Content: Article | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Michael Bazigos | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy