Fred Kiel

We talk about moral viruses, which are simply inaccurate or incorrect beliefs about the world or oneself. Almost all viruses stem from fear-based beliefs, which are usually irrational or inaccurate fears, such as the fear of an ethnic group.

Leaders have their own set of moral viruses. One that’s lethal relates to trust–the idea that you can’t trust people until they’ve proved they’re worthy. That’s a … [ Read more ]

Fred Kiel

If you don’t tell people what your beliefs are, they’ll guess and hold you accountable for what they guess. Being forthright has the additional benefit of making people feel like they understand you, and it develops trust faster than any other way.

Spotlight on Nigel Nicholson

Nigel Nicholson speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the implications of evolutionary psychology for business.

Reinhard Selten

It can be proved through experiments that people are not conscious of the reasons why they make a decision…People do not know what has influenced their decision and often invent reasons for their choice afterward. Only a small part of decision making reaches the conscious mind, while most decision making, just as most thinking, is below this threshold of consciousness. You know what you are … [ Read more ]

Engagement Keeps the Doctor Away

A happy employee is a healthy employee, according to a GMJ survey

Catherine Hakim

Men have always recognized that you really have to make choices. Women have deluded themselves into thinking that you don’t. This is not to say that you can’t have a decent family life and an interesting job as well. People who are working part time in professional jobs are having a much happier time than if they were home working full time as mothers or … [ Read more ]

Competent to Lead

Results and talent. In people management, competencies should be given equal consideration to objectives, say Pablo Cardona and Pilar García-Lombardía in their book “Cómo desarrollar las competencias de liderazgo” (“How to Develop Leadership Competencies”). In the authors’ view, organizations that adapt tasks to fit their employees’ competency profile have a better chance of success, especially if they take steps to develop the desired competencies. Cardona … [ Read more ]

Jim Rohn

To be a master communicator, all you have to do is follow a simple three-step process. First, have something good to say. Second, say it well. And third, say it often.

A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower, Achieve Results, and Stop Wasting Time

“By its very nature, a manager’s job leaves little room for reflection,” Bruch and Ghoshal contend, “and as a result managers tend to ignore or postpone dealing with the organization’s most crucial issues.” How can managers overcome this problem and learn to take “purposeful action” rather than drowning in the day-to-day deluge of email, phone calls and meetings? That’s the question the authors answer in … [ Read more ]

Managing at the Right Level

In many organizations, managers manage at one level too low. And that makes it difficult to create paradigmatic change.

Using Conflict to Your Advantage

An intensive study of teams in the aeronautical industry in the mid-90’s, led to the observation that successful learning teams went through a four-stage process before they achieved collective or organizational learning. Conflict often acted as a stimulant to propel teams toward organizational learning. On the other hand, not all teams became successful learning teams, and conflict was sometimes a factor when they did not. … [ Read more ]

Mike Morrison (Dean of Toyota University)

There is no efficiency in knowledge work — it’s the wrong target. Discretionary time is required for problem solving, innovative thinking, and fruitful collaborations.

Susan Cramm

Formal presentations often shut down the very communication they are meant to foster. Without sufficient knowledge of the interests of the audience, a slide show says, “I’ve got the answers and you’re here to listen.” This type of presentation tends to fall short of the impact of simply asking a few well-thought-out questions earlier in the process.

How Management Destroys Employee Enthusiasm

A Q&A with industrial psychologist and author David Sirota

Creative Destruction

How can corporations make themselves more like the market? An excerpt from the best-selling book.

Aaron Wildavsky, Jonathan Ledgard

“The most powerful factors in how people perceive risk,” Professor Wildavsky wrote in his essay “Riskless Society,” “apparently are ‘trust in institutions’ and ‘self-rated liberal and conservative identification.'” According to the professor, left-leaning individuals are more likely to perceive true risk as potential injustice and perceive technology as exploitative, harming the poor and nature, while those who lean to the right are more likely to … [ Read more ]

Flexibility Key to Retaining Women

In the workplace, employers need to take into account women who take a temporary “off-ramp” from their careers. Here is how to keep them connected to your company.

Bjorn Lomborg

Prioritization is about doing something. It’s not about an excuse for inaction.

Competencies of senior managers

A study by George O. Klemp, Jr. and David C. McClelland, “What Characterizes Intelligent Functioning Among Senior Managers?” examined the attributes that distinguished successful senior managers from their average counterparts, through a method called job competence assessment. The results of the study indicated that there were eight competencies which differentiated between top senior managers and their average counterparts.