4751 Posts Found

In a very stable world, where you know the probabilities and the risks, you can optimize. But even in that case, I would counsel against optimizing with a narrow criterion. I don’t think that is ever a good idea, because it brings brittleness to a system. This is because when a system is optimized, all its parts need to work properly, and some are going … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: W. Brian Arthur | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management

In a world where we don’t trust the ground we stand on, what really counts is adaptation or resilience.

Content: Quotation | Author: W. Brian Arthur | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

As you consider a past decision as a team, think about what you knew before you made it. What was revealed after the fact? Could you have known about it beforehand?

We tend to only review decisions that are associated with bad outcomes, like missing a sales target by 10%. But when you exceed that same target by 10%, there’s no meeting, no post-mortem. Just congratulations … [ Read more ]

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

To make great decisions, you need accountability, repeatability, and examinability. I always describe it like this: We need to create an evidentiary record, a way to Google our own decision-making.

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

If purpose is the broader intent of why you are there, values are how you make purpose come alive.

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Polman | Source: Management and Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Management, Mission, Values

Executives who confront new challenges with old formulas often fail. The best leaders tailor their approach, recalibrating their “action orientation” to address the problem at hand, says Ryan Raffaelli. He details three action orientations and how leaders can harness them.

Content: Article | Authors: Ben Rand, Ryan Raffaelli | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Decision Making, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

It’s not enough to make sure the right people are on the bus and in the right seat on the bus, as Jim Collins enlightened us in his book Good to Great. Great leaders understand that even the best players on their team need coaching and inspiration.

Content: Quotation | Author: Harrison Monarth | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Training & Development

In a remodeled world, it is vital for companies to reinvent ways of working.

Content: Article | Authors: Deniz Caglar, Edward Faccio, Erika Ryback | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

No incentive system turns mediocre into extraordinary.

Content: Quotation | Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Founders, here’s a good litmus test for your company values: If you took 6 months off, and left no directions other than “Follow our values to a T,” would you be happy with the outcome?

Content: Quotation | Author: Laura Del Beccaro | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Culture, Management, Organizational Behavior, Values

With experience comes pattern recognition and resilience, the ability to separate yourself from individual setbacks enough to see that the far side of failure is success if you reflect on the lessons.

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Keller | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Personal Development, Success / Failure

The best CEOs don’t just tell people, “This is where we’re going,” and expect them to follow. They understand the underlying psychology at play. For example, researchers have done experiments where they give lottery tickets to a group and half get a ticket with an assigned number and the other half gets a blank piece of paper where they write their own number. Then, before … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Scott Keller | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Five lessons for incumbents on how to build and scale new digital ventures—and increase their odds of success.

Content: Article | Authors: Nimal Manuel, Ralf Dreischmeier, Tomas Beerthuis, Tomas Laboutka | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management

As product leaders, every choice we make is a choice that we save our users from making. If we’re not clear about what we want our product to do, we shift that lack of clarity to the user.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ravi Mehta | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

You can’t add simplicity in. You must take complexity out.

Content: Quotation | Author: Dharmesh Shah | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Productivity / Work Tips, Products & Services

Most companies promote managers for hitting designated targets rather than for pursing the best process strategy. A good plan which fails is seldom rewarded, even if it had evident merit. But some companies do inculcate a smart process mindset in their culture and try to reward it. […] Has your organization ever given a performance reward for an excellent plan that happened to fail? Although … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul J.H. Schoemaker | Source: Management and Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Management, Success / Failure

But it doesn’t have to be such a chore. When done well, performance reviews are an incredibly valuable exercise that enables a manager and direct report to track growth over time, align on how the work impacts what matters most to the business, and build a more open and trusting relationship. The conversation should flow both ways — a back-and-forth dialogue, not a lecture.

That’s why … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Coaching, Human Resources, Management, Training & Development

The most important thing you have to figure out in order to change a company or change the culture of a company is what is not going to change. The reason is that if everything is up for grabs, if you can change literally anything about a company, then the company has no reason for being. For an institution to change, it needs to separate … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: A.G. Sulzberger | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Experts behind the rules of value-creating growth discuss how leaders can apply these insights to their growth strategies.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Bradley, Rebecca Doherty | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

Instead of asking [executive leadership team (ELT)] members to summarize how they are doing (which usually only yields positive reports), one CEO we know focuses the conversation on “What keeps you up at night?” At executive team meetings, she asks her direct reports to share their biggest challenges. Then as a team ELT members help one another by sharing ways they have successfully overcome such … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Deborah Lovich, Henning Streubel, Joseph Halverson, Robert Werner | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership, Management