3605 Posts Found

A new Harvard Business School working paper looks inside the communications “black box” of a large company to understand who talks to whom, and finds the corporate silo as impenetrable as ever. Q&A with professor Toby E. Stuart.

Content: Article | Authors: Sarah Jane Gilbert, Toby E. Stuart | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The environment has taken center stage recently in the media. Perhaps “environment” should be the word at the center of leadership conversations as well. Consciously or unconsciously, leaders cultivate the environment in their workplaces. Some are lush climates where leaders flourish and thrive, while others are toxic environments where leaders either leave or wither from the pollution. This article poses five questions about the environment … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Maxwell | Source: The Mindful Network | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

The environment has taken center stage recently in the media. Perhaps “environment” should be the word at the center of leadership conversations as well. Consciously or unconsciously, leaders cultivate the environment in their workplaces. Some are lush climates where leaders flourish and thrive, while others are toxic environments where leaders either leave or wither from the pollution. This article poses five questions about the environment … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Maxwell | Source: The Mindful Network | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Forget all you know about workplace interplay. Today’s younger generations have rewritten the rules of the game.

Editor’s Note: a lot of what’s written in this article didn’t ring true to me and seemed pure conjecture and a bit cynical but I’m a bit removed from this particular topic so maybe you’ll find it more accurate?

Content: Article | Author: Marilyn Moats Kennedy | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Demographics, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Many factors drive a company’s performance, not the least of which are entrepreneurial creativity and managerial effectiveness. In two papers recently presented at the fifth annual Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference (ACAC) at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, U.S. and Australian faculty presented their research on the effects of group mood and managerial mental models on creative and structural dynamics, offering strategies for enhanced business success. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Emory | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. The contingency we have not considered seriously looks strange; what looks strange is thought improbable; what is improbable need not be considered seriously.

Content: Quotation | Author: Thomas C. Schelling | Source: Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Foreword) | Subjects: Decision Making, Planning, Risk Management, Strategy

Companies are vulnerable to misconceptions, biases, and plain old lies. But not hopelessly vulnerable.

Content: Article | Authors: Dan P. Lovallo, Olivier Sibony | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

In 2006, things were not so great for Vodafone Spain. Its technology area was falling behind the rest of the company. Jaime Bustillo (CTO, Vodafone Spain), Pedro Diaz (HR Director, Vodafone Spain) and Luis Huete of IESE detail the immediate and necessary steps that Vodafone Spain’s technology area had to take to instate “The Ultimate Cultural Change,” which, by the first quarter of 2008, resulted … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Authors: Jaime Bustillo, Luis Huete, Pedro Díaz | Source: IESE Business School | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior | Company: Vodafone

There is little evidence that the ability of today’s organizations to accurately understand the world and predict the future has increased one iota. Massive spending on these [information] systems has not prevented corporations from wandering off the beaten strategic path, or being ambushed by new competitors and changing markets, and I would argue that the reason for this is a natural tension between the pursuits … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Rotman Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

[Philip Zimbardo’s] observations belie the standard explanation offered by business leaders when people in their organizations are caught misbehaving: Hey, there are a few bad apples in any barrel. Zimbardo argues that, in fact, ethical problems in organizations originate with the “barrel makers” — the leaders who, wittingly or not, create and maintain the systems within which participants are encouraged to do wrong. Hence, instead … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: James O’Toole | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Ethics, Organizational Behavior

Abundance has satisfied, and even over-satisfied, the material needs of millions—boosting the significance of beauty and emotion and accelerating individuals’ search for meaning.

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Pink | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales, Personality / Behavior

From the time our ancestors lived in caves to that day in the late ’80s when Chrysler sanctioned unofficial “tech clubs” to promote the flow of information between teams working on different vehicle platforms, bands of like-minded individuals had been gathering in a wide variety of settings to recount their experiences and share their expertise. Few paid much attention until a number of possible benefits … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, William Snyder | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Much quantitative data—what we now think of as hard, concrete facts—are really quite soft and abstract.

Think about it. We come up with a question—say, how’s morale? We create abstract categories related to that question, categories like trust, confidence, or autonomy; we use these categories to formulate statements in some kind of survey; we give the survey to lots of people; we ask them to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Diana McLain Smith | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Market Research, Miscellaneous, Organizational Behavior

If there’s anything we’re wired to do, it’s learn. That means even folks arguably difficult by nature can become less so—at least most of them. It also means we shouldn’t assume, as we almost always do, that someone’s incapable of change just because our efforts to make them change fail. The biggest reason people don’t realize their full potential for change is that we focus … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Diana McLain Smith | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

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Much sociological research suggests that the desire to avoid embarrassment, to maintain an acceptable public image, might be an even more powerful motive for human behavior than financial incentives. Organizations seeking to galvanize people to action—getting them to embrace new ideas or stimulating the personal initiative that often fuels innovation—should take this research…to heart.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Hayagreeva Rao, Robert I. Sutton | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

A new form of global organization grounded in “gateway” countries can allow a company to operate profitably around the world.

Content: Article | Authors: C.K. Prahalad, Hrishi Bhattacharyya | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: International, Organizational Behavior

the largest site in the world on all aspects of how we change what others think, believe, feel and do. There are already over 2500 pages here, with much more to come. [Hat Tip to Guy Kawasaki]

Content: Online Resource | Subjects: Management, Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Fear of making a fool of oneself is a very strong driver of behavior, and it has occurred to me more than once that this is a rare fear among successful men and more common—usually without foundation—among successful women.

Content: Quotation | Author: Sandra Dawson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Women in Business

We talk a lot today about the importance of mentoring and coaching, and they can be vital in helping novices learn the rules of the game. But it is very important that men should not always be mentored by men and women by women. Mentoring based on interests, not gender, can help to change the culture because it can lead to greater understanding of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Sandra Dawson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Career, Coaching, Women in Business