13 Posts found for Author: Ron Carucci

If you want your values to really matter, you must root them in all organizational decisions. For a company’s values to feel integral to the lifeblood of the organization, they must be visibly central to how the organization competes.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jarrod Shappell, Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Governance design — which defines who gets to make decisions and allocate resources — is often too complicated or unclear to be effective. For a strategy to be successful, those closest to the most relevant information, budgets, and problems are the best equipped to make decisions. When leaders have proximity to an issue but no authority, authority without the needed resources, or control of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jarrod Shappell, Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Know what your current organization is and isn’t capable of and what capabilities you need to achieve [a] newly articulated strategy. Unlike competencies, which belong to individuals, capabilities are organizational.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jarrod Shappell, Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

An organization is nothing more than a living embodiment of a strategy. That means its “organizational hardware” (i.e., structures, processes, technologies, and governance) and its “organizational software” (i.e., values, norms, culture, leadership, and employee skills and aspirations) must be designed exclusively in the service of a specific strategy. Research suggests that only 10% of organizations are successful at aligning their strategy with their organization design. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jarrod Shappell, Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

For teams to run effectively, the number of layers within a hierarchy and the number of direct reports on a leader’s team must be carefully determined based on two factors: the type of work people are doing and the amount of coordination that work requires. Highly complex or high-risk work […] often requires extensive coordination to execute effectively. Therefore, it makes sense to keep a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Quality roles are designed around desired outcomes, and not around people. When companies build roles around people, they are unintentionally defining their value by the sum total of whatever the person in that role is capable of doing. As a result, a role is seen as important only when a superstar is in it — regardless of how vital it is to the company’s performance. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Four of the most common irritants I’ve seen arise as a result of ineffective organization design are: competing priorities, unwanted turnover, inaccessible bosses, and cross-functional rivalry. If you find yourself struggling with one or more of these issues, consider if the design challenges I discuss below may be the deeper cause. Doing so may help you pinpoint, and resolve, the real problem.

Content: Article | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Saying no is one of the greatest gifts an executive can give their organization. Too many leaders overestimate the capacity of their organizations under the ruse of “stretch goals” or “challenge assignments” to justify their denial of the organization’s true limitations.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Experts have opined for decades on the reasons behind the spectacular failure rates of strategy execution. In 2016, it was estimated that 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution. There are many explanations for this abysmal failure rate, but a 10-year longitudinal study on executive leadership conducted by my firm showed one clear reason. A full 61% of executives told us they were … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

A 10-year longitudinal study on executive transitions that my organization conducted found that more than 50% of executives who inherit a mess fail within their first 18 months on the job. We also uncovered numerous landmines for leaders in this situation. When a leader inherits a mess created by others, especially when arriving as an outsider, the situation can feel fragile and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

Without a sound fact and insight base on which to prioritize resources, squeaky wheels get all the grease. Great strategic executives know how to use data to generate new insights about how they and their industries make money. Examining patterns of performance over time — financial, operational, customer, and competitive data — will reveal critical foresight about future opportunities and risks.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy

It’s a common complaint among top executives: “I’m spending all my time managing trivial and tactical problems, and I don’t have time to get to the big-picture stuff.” And yet when I ask my executive clients, “If I cleared your calendar for an entire day to free you up to be ‘more strategic,’ what would you actually do?” most have no idea. I often get … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Personal Development, Time Management, Work

Despite the huge impact executives can have on their organizations, failure rates remain high. Prescriptions for what to do continue to fall short. So we wondered: If we closely studied the executives who succeed in top jobs once appointed, could we identify distinguishing features that set them apart and defined their success?

As part of our ten-year longitudinal study on executive transitions, which included more than … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ron Carucci | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Personal Development