4751 Posts Found

Too much performance feedback is of the “do good and avoid evil” variety. That may sound harmless, but overly general feedback increases feelings of defensiveness, rather than openness to behavior change, because it involves broad judgments and invites counterpunching rather than discussion.

Content: Quotation | Author: Frank V. Cespedes | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

Effective reviews require a judgment about causes of a person’s performance. For example, are performance issues the consequence of deficiencies in motivation or ability? Some people may work hard, but lack certain capabilities: Can training and coaching enhance those capabilities? Others may have the abilities but lack motivation: Can different incentives or processes increase motivation? Still others may seemingly lack both motivation and relevant ability: … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Frank V. Cespedes | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Management

For interpersonal [feedback], I’m a big fan of a simple formula: “When you A, I feel B, because C, and what I’d really like is D.” Specific behavior, specific emotion, specific cognition, specific alternative behavior.  And I think a variant can be used for delivering performance feedback as well: “When you A, it causes B, because C. One thing to try could be D.” Specific … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Matt Wallaert | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

Some people say, “Strategy is important, but it’s really about execution.” That’s silly. That’s like saying, “We have a military strategy, but our soldiers are too fat to walk.” Execution is part of strategy, of course. Strategy is about what is important and the challenges you face. If one of these challenges is that the organization is dysfunctional, then that’s strategic. If your managers are … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Richard Rumelt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Execution, Management, Strategy

Employees who are disciplined about setting daily goals not only accomplish more but also feel better about their work. Here are three ways that managers can make daily goal-setting a habit.

Content: Article | Author: Nele Van Buggenhout | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development, Training & Development

Show people what they are losing by not doing something, and help them realize that even if the moment-to-moment costs are harder to create change, even over a short period of time, the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jonah Berger | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Change Management, Management, Organizational Behavior

The strategy, purpose, and values discussions—what Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen, calls a company’s “social architecture”—have often felt like separate exercises, but they now need to work in concert. “If you don’t have a social architecture that’s solid, well-accepted, and can be operationalized against the most important decisions you make, that’s leadership’s fault,” said Sharer.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adam Bryant, Kevin Sharer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Goals, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy, Values

The author analyzed project teams across 257 firms to identify why only 60% of planned value is typically realized in change initiatives, focusing on four key factors: effective initial communication (“ACE the Memo”), ensuring resource accessibility and autonomy (“Master the Means”), employing mechanisms to align actions with goals (“Amplify with Mechanisms”), and account for the needs of each implementation stage (“Measure to Account”).

Content: Article | Author: Tom Hunsaker | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Change Management, Management

Ask the question: Which quarterly goal does that workstream support? If you keep finding that the work that you’re doing isn’t reflected in the quarterly goals, it’s time to rethink how you’re approaching those OKRs, or get them right the next time.

Content: Quotation | Author: Russ Laraway | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Management, Personal Development

There’s no problem with tackling low-hanging fruit. Eventually, you have to. But you better make sure that you solve for the bottleneck first — because every bit of low-hanging fruit you tackle creates an illusion of progress and sunk cost problems.

Content: Quotation | Author: Annie Duke | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Project Management

Lecturer Matt Abrahams shares what it takes to be a more confident, connected, and clear facilitator.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Matt Abrahams | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.

Content: Quotation | Author: Russell L. Ackoff | Subjects: Management, Personal Development, Success / Failure

It has been proven time and again that single organizations cannot really maintain a focus on being extremely cost efficient, innovative, and customer centric simultaneously. Acknowledging this implies organizing in teams that are small enough to have a single core objective, which defines their culture and ways of working. 

It’s important to distinguish between:

• Delivery teams. These manage specific assets and resources via focused organizational and leadership

… [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Gillis Jonk, Johan C. Aurik | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Ronald Coase theorized that as transaction costs come down, so does the need for companies to keep all parts of their value chains in-house. Time has proven Coase right several times over: every company today not only outsources, insources, partners, platforms, co-brands, co-develops, co-innovates, and licenses like there is no tomorrow, every technology company and start-up aspires to provide its offerings on-demand or as-a-service.

As a result, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Gillis Jonk, Johan C. Aurik | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Organizations that follow a progression of steps to achieve excellence in digital delivery may see improvements in effectiveness, productivity, and performance, as well as significant increases in speed.

Content: Article | Authors: Dan Gardner, Lauren McCoy, Moid Mohammed, Rishi Markenday, Santiago Comella-Dorda, Vik Sohoni | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Management, Organizational Behavior

I firmly believe that the majority of my time and coaching energy should actually go into people who are high-performing. They are the rocket ships that could end up running parts of the company someday. To me, as a manager you’re looking to bring out the maximal optimized version of each person. So when you have someone who’s doing really well, the question should be, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Molly Graham | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

My approach to management is about fighting cognitive biases. Humans have a recency bias, meaning we tend to overweight recent experiences. In management that means I’m mostly paying attention to whoever I talked to last — as the saying goes, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” So I try to be on alert for the people who I haven’t heard from. It’s often because they … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Matt Wallaert | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

We often think of miscommunication as an issue with our own content or delivery — that if we could tweak the what or the how, our message would be more effective. But that perpetuates a dynamic where we view our counterparts as an audience, not as collaborators.

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

Your job in 1:1s is to make each person feel heard.

Content: Quotation | Author: Liz Fosslien | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

As part of the strategic planning process, you’re making choices. It’s important to document those concrete choices — not just that we’ve chosen to do A, but also to explicitly reinforce that we’re not going to do B.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ravi Mehta | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy