3590 Posts Found

Some self-help groups save lives, and some just drift apart. What makes a personal network click?

Content: Article | Author: Virginia Postrel | Source: Forbes | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Organizational Behavior

Bureaucratic institutions in both the private and public sector break up knowledge and its components, storing and processing them in separate compartments, or ‘stovepipes’. Over time, these stovepipes multiply, as ever-more narrow specialization increases the number of uncrossable boundaries. This makes it extremely difficult to cope with fastchanging new problems requiring knowledge that falls beyond artificial departmental borders.To complicate matters, guarding each stovepipe is an … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Rotman Magazine | Subjects: Bureaucracy, Knowledge

Former Intel chief Andy Grove has said that his firm’s strategy process evolved in alternating cycles of chaos and singleminded focus – sometimes adapting, sometimes closing. Companies that do nothing but change – constantly reorganizing, always envisioning some new strategy or other, bringing in yet another team of change consultants – never reach closure, and so are no better off than companies that never change. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Rotman Magazine | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

In this paper, we seek to use quantitative models to help appreciate the behavioral processes associated with successful cross-functional and cross-firm alignment in supply/demand planning. We model the interaction between a sales and a manufacturing function within a firm, or between an upstream and downstream firm. We claim that misalignment is costly both to the involved functions/firms and to the rest of the organization or … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Noel Watson, Santiago Kraiselburd | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) | Subjects: Operations, Organizational Behavior

Despite a surge in interest in improving engagement, people still disagree about what employee engagement is, how to go about getting it, and what it looks like when it is achieved. Additionally, with all the attention given to reported levels of low employee engagement, there are few if any statistics on what a realistic level of engagement should be for employees overall and for various … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Theresa M. Welbourne | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

While studying teamwork, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson chanced upon a seeming paradox: Well-led teams appeared to make more mistakes than average teams. Could this be true? As it turned out, good teams, which value communication, report more errors. In a recent research paper Edmondson and doctoral student Sara Singer explore this and other hidden barriers to organizational learning.

Content: Article | Author: Amy Edmondson | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Practitioners and academics have argued that an engaged workforce can create competitive advantage. These authors say that it is imperative for leaders to identify the level of engagement in their organization and implement behavioural strategies that will facilitate full engagement. In clear terms, they describe how leaders can do that.

Content: Article | Authors: Dan Crim, Gerard H. Seijts | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

One of the distinguishing features of people is that they have strong ideas about what is right and wrong. If you can resonate, collectively, with those ideas, then you can tap into people’s commitment and creativity to a far greater degree.

Content: Quotation | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

You know the type: coworkers who never have anything positive to say, whether at the weekly staff meeting or in the cafeteria line. They can suck the energy from a brainstorming session with a few choice comments. Their negativity can contaminate even good news. “We engage in emotional contagion,” says Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade. “Emotions travel from person to person like a virus.” Barsade … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Human beings are creatures of habit. Many of our actions are repetitive and require little conscious thought or effort. However, according to a new study, by predicting our behavior we can actually reinforce good habits and break bad ones. The study by INSEAD Assistant Professor of Marketing Pierre Chandon and four US-based Marketing professors is called ‘When Does the Past Repeat Itself? The Role of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Pierre Chandon | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

Positive people tend to do better in the workplace, and it isn’t just because people like them more than naysayers. Positive people cognitively process more efficiently and more appropriately. If you’re in a negative mood, a fair amount of processing is going to that mood. When you’re in a positive mood, you’re more open to taking in information and handling it effectively.

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Attitude, Organizational Behavior

Group work is the name of the game in many companies. The thinking is that workers will learn more and help each other when they are put into groups composed of people with a variety of expertise. But does this always happen? Some recent research suggests that it may not … at least not always.

Content: Article | Author: Stuart Bunderson | Source: Discovery@Olin | Subject: Organizational Behavior

You need a story to displace a story. Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas; they are also easier to remember and more fun to read. Ideas come and go, stories stay.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Communication, Storytelling

Everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention. We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just a superficial race (this may be curable to some extent); we are a very unfair one.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Problems / Solutions

People don’t know how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The way we’ve taught managers to make decisions and consultants to analyze problems condemns them to taking action when it’s too late. The only way you can look into the future is with theory. And that’s a big leap for managers to take.

The key to good theory is good categorization–understanding the circumstances you’re in, and the circumstances you’re not in.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Decision Making, Problems / Solutions

Leadership is not a matter of position but of relationships, and one-on-one, personal encounters are vital in building those relationships. In the end, people follow you because they believe it is in their interests to do so, not because you claim to be a leader, because others have designated you as leader, or because you have the resources and position of leadership. There’s no better … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jeswald W. Salacuse | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

As a 20-year veteran of change in corporate America, Peter Garber draws on his extensive experience as a human resource professional and international consultant to help managers and leaders anticipate and plan for the inevitable waves of change in their organizations.

10 Natural Forces for Business Success offers a wealth of new discoveries about how to build operational and personnel systems around the 10 natural forces … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Peter Garber | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

According to a Stanford psychologist, you’ll reach new heights if you learn to embrace the occasional tumble.

Content: Article | Authors: Carol Dweck, Marina Krakovsky | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Managers don’t need pictures of hierarchy; they need visualizations of the wide-ranging connections that make up companies’ learning systems. Rather than charts showing who reports to whom, they need charts to show who knows what and whom, and who works most often with whom.

Content: Quotation | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior