4751 Posts Found

One important step that leaders can take is to explicitly acknowledge the circumstances in which either competition or cooperation is most likely to achieve the desired outcome. Then, as a leader, you can examine your organization’s structures, processes, and protocols to see if they align with the intended competitive or cooperative behaviors. Where there is dissonance, correct it.

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric McNulty | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Agile and transient teams are the emerging norm. Organizations have learned to hire cooperative and empathetic individuals who can work well in teams, yet their so-called leaders still construct highly competitive environments (for example, by encouraging teams to compete over scarce resources).

Content: Quotation | Author: Brian Spisak | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

A great meeting has three key elements: the desired outcome of the meeting is clear ahead of time; the various options are clear, ideally ahead of time; and the roles of the participants are clear at the time. … I think that’s the single largest source of optimization for a company: the makeup of their meetings. To be clear, it’s not about fewer meetings because … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Ek | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Feelings are messengers of needs. Meeting needs unlocks positive feelings and energy; neglecting needs does the opposite. By integrating business objectives with meeting people’s needs, companies can make sure the strong wind of a positive emotional force is at their back. Emotions and feelings bring our needs — human requirements for survival — to our attention and strongly move us toward meeting them. 

[…]

Our feelings … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Carolyn Black, Chad Gomes, Jon R. Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

If your company makes four products, it really makes five. If it makes 12, it makes 13. Even companies that make just one thing actually make two.

The secret product? The company itself. Your company is a product. Who are its customers? Your employees, who use it to do their jobs.

Since your company is the product that makes all of your other products, it should be the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jason Fried | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

[Milton] Friedman ignored that in a democratic-capitalist society, democracy must come first. “We, the people” grant businesses their license to operate — which they, in turn, must earn and renew.

Content: Quotation | Author: Darren Walker | Source: The New York Times | Subjects: Economics, Management

The shareholder-primacy view of the corporation — which gives little voice to the workers, customers and communities that are impacted by corporate decisions — has been the modus operandi of United States capitalism. Why did this view become so dominant? One rationale was a practical one. Rather than being asked to balance multiple, often conflicting, interests among stakeholders, the manager is given a simple objective … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marianne Bertrand | Source: The New York Times | Subjects: Economics, Management

[If] an organization is to meet the challenges of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except [its] beliefs as it moves through corporate life.

Content: Quotation | Author: Thomas J. Watson Jr. | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

An autonomous existence is heavily burdened and beset with fears, and can be endured only when bolstered by confidence and self-esteem. The individual’s most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action.

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Self-doubt is at the core of our being. We need people who by their attitude and words will convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Hence the vital role of judicious praise.

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Too many people believe that speed is the enemy of quality. To an extent they’re right — you can’t force innovation and sometimes genius needs time and freedom to bloom. But in my experience, that’s the rare case. There’s not always a stark tradeoff between something done fast and done well. Don’t let you or your organization use that as a false shield or excuse … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Dave Girouard | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

The untrained mind has a weird way of defaulting to serial activities — i.e. I’ll do this after you do that after X, Y, Z happens. You want people working in parallel instead.

Content: Quotation | Author: Dave Girouard | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The art of good decision making requires that you gather input and perspective from your team, and then push toward a final decision in a way that makes it clear that all voices were heard. […] I wouldn’t call it consensus building — you don’t want consensus to hold you hostage — but input from others will help you get to the right decision faster, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Dave Girouard | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

CEOs have to be particularly careful about setting ambitious targets and using powerful language to motivate employees. Audacious goals can create fear (what happens if I don’t deliver?), and they may be interpreted as giving implicit permission for bad behavior.

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert Chesnut | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

The 4 Cs of trust is a simple model that guides leaders to action. It’s based on the premise that although people experience trust in different ways, there are behaviors that increase the likelihood of building trust over time.

Content: Article | Author: Michele DiMartino | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Communication is not just about what you say, it’s about the reaction it causes in the listener. Often we think delivering a message is enough without checking to see if it was actually received.

Content: Quotation | Author: Khalid Halim | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Coaching is about looking beyond solving short-term problems and instead training people to uncover their own self-limiting mental habits, because only then is true, long-term transformation possible.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Holmberg | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Lack of trust doesn’t necessarily come from people lying and cheating; it generally comes from a lack of good communication.

Content: Quotation | Author: Evan Williams | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

If you tell your employees that you want them to embrace teamwork, but then reward your work force based on what they accomplish individually, you’ve undercut your message. In all likelihood, the consequence will be that employees who want to be considered for a bonus may no longer want to perform or support “unseen” collaborative work, which, despite what the company posits, goes unrewarded.

Content: Quotation | Author: Susan David | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

In the current model of corporate capitalism, each company is treated as an economic island to be optimized individually. While this simplifies management and accountability, it masks the extent of economic and social interdependence between different stakeholders. In contrast, resilience is a property of systems: an individual company’s resilience means little if its supply base, customer base, or the social systems upon which it depends … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Kevin Whitaker, Martin Reeves | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, Management, Operations