3567 Posts Found

We have a very peculiar industry in finance. The people who go into it all think they’re enormously gifted, whether that’s true or not, and they all believe that they should at least be lieutenant colonels in the army, if not all generals. And when that’s your workforce, you have to deal with people in a very unusual way. Because if you don’t, all these … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Stephen A. Schwarzman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Culture, Industry Specific, Organizational Behavior

There are two problems with relying so much on data.

The first problem is our desire to make business a science and identify cause and effect in isolation. The outcomes of so many decisions that companies make are not determined by inescapable laws of science. They’re determined by the actions of leaders who have agency to affect those outcomes.

The second problem with data is that when … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Zeynep Ton | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

Many team dysfunctions manifest as trust issues when, in fact, they stem from discrepancies in goals, priorities, or expectations. Clearing up those misunderstandings often resolves what you thought were interpersonal issues.

Content: Quotation | Author: Liane Davey | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

We always talk about scaling companies, but companies are just collections of people. If you’re not really thoughtful about them and what they need to succeed, it’s going to be hard to succeed as a company.

Content: Quotation | Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management, Organizational Behavior

People will debate you if you’re asserting something, whereas if you’re asking for feedback, they won’t be as honest because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Content: Quotation | Author: Abhishek Agrawal | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

When you are guided by consensus, it often means you are reaching the most vanilla or neutral outcomes.

Content: Quotation | Author: Noah Desai Weiss | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

Alignment is the fundamental challenge with almost every large company. Communication is hard, and people are just busy. But if you can crack the code and keep your organization aligned and focused, it’s like a superpower for velocity.

Content: Quotation | Author: Noah Desai Weiss | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Data can help solve easy problems, but it doesn’t actually solve the hard problems. A hard problem can’t be solved by experimenting your way out of it. You have to figure out if it’s a big swing you want to take. You do that by using intuition.

Content: Quotation | Author: Noah Desai Weiss | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior

When appropriate, pay the best middle managers even more than your senior leaders to show how much you value them. If you hear complaints from the executives, make up the difference in equity. Compensation should be commensurate with the value a role creates.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock, Emily Field | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

A clever strategy on paper is only the starting point for engaging those who will implement it. Strategies must also be communicated and understood — and they must motivate action. Most strategy documents and presentations fail miserably when it comes to this last point. […] Strategy stories can provide a powerful bridge between arguments and actions, intentions and results, and strategists and implementers. […] A … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Madeleine Michael, Martin Reeves, Roeland van Straten, Tim Nolan | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Storytelling, Strategy

With proper attention and investment, frontline workers constitute a motivated workforce that can unleash an organization’s highest potential.

Content: Article | Authors: Cassandra Di Prizio, Claire Roehri, Julia Dhar, Lina Bankert, Molly Verghese, Sara Wasserteil | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

What makes a high-performing innovation team is a diversity of perspectives and experiences, but in a psychologically safe space so that team members can actually share openly, come up with a common vocabulary, and look at the problem through very different lenses.

Content: Quotation | Author: Erik Roth | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

Team triumphs individuals. This is key. You want to have a unicorn culture eventually, but the team is more important. This implies that probably we need to redefine high-performing individuals.

What is a high-performing individual? This is what the unicorn idea does. A high-performing individual is not just the one who achieves business results. Unfortunately, too many times that’s the key criteria, the ability to perform … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mauro Porcini | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

This is one of the problems of focusing on the short term. You have many leaders that rotate every two, three years, so the idea that they’re going to invest part of their budget in something that’s going to generate value for the next manager, it’s not that attractive. So we need to rethink the way we reward these leaders and connect them to long-term … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mauro Porcini | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The second phase of my [new culture building] journey was the hidden rejection. People were rejecting me, but I was not aware of it. This is very typical when you try to change culture in any kind of organization. I learned something at that moment that changed the trajectory of my professional journey in these companies: every time I pitch an idea, I ask the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mauro Porcini | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Culture, Organizational Behavior

The silo effect, characterized by limited communication between specialized business departments, can negatively impact communication and collaboration in organizations. In particular, there are three types of silos: systemic, elitist, and protectionist, each requiring specific strategies for resolution. These targeted solutions—aligning goals, improving communication, and fostering secure data sharing—can help dismantle silos and foster a more collaborative environment.

Content: Article | Authors: Daniel J. Finkenstadt, Elias Kirche, Piyush Shah, Thomas Kull | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Companies need to treat the execution of routine tasks and customer interactions as opportunities for learning. Standardizing tasks or offerings becomes counterproductive since it suppresses variance, which is the grist for new ideas. Instead, firms need to leverage their digital presence and use learning algorithms to capture and process lessons from each interaction.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adam Job, Martin Reeves, Mihnea Moldoveanu | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Organizational Behavior

Companies should seek ways to track real-time employee experiences and gain insights into issues affecting employees’ work lives and their organizations’ performance. Leaders realize that engaging employees takes more than sending out an annual survey. Instead, it requires a year-long people strategy aimed at clarifying expectations and maximizing performance. To that end, leaders want a way to gather employee feedback throughout the year. Thus, the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Annamarie Mann, Jim Harter | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Middle managers may have a reputation for being bureaucratic, but in reality they aren’t so much the cause of bureaucracy as a barometer for it.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Brooke Weddle, Bryan Hancock, Emily Field, Stephanie Smallets | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Bureaucracy, Management, Organizational Behavior

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Authenticity) / Perception of Self Interest

Content: Quotation | Author: Anne Raimondi | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Trust