3590 Posts Found

Organizational change is a fact of life in today’s companies, but why is it such a challenge? In a paper titled “Asymmetric Adaptability: Dynamic Team Structures As One-Way Streets,” Henry Moon of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and coauthors look into the factors at play when moving from one organizational set up to another. The findings, published last year in the Academy of Management Journal, … [ Read more ]

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

Networks are based on trust. Because trust is determined through face-to-face interactions, one needs to appreciate the profound and stark truth about networks: ‘You don’t look like me, you don’t dress like me, you don’t think like me, therefore I don’t want to know or understand you.’ This fetish for the familiar is fundamentally tribal and resistant to the heterogeneous qualities of hierarchical organization. So … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subjects: Knowledge, Organizational Behavior

When rapid or radical change is called for, executives must turn to the networks within their organization. Key positions in the network mobilize it to flexibly adapt to the exigencies of the moment. Three prototypical patterns emerge. The first pattern is the hub, as in a ‘hub and spoke’ system on a bicycle wheel. This pattern represents an optimal distribution system for centralizing work processes. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Experience, direct or indirect, is the source of tacit knowledge. Stored in people, tacit knowledge is actuated (shared) though trust formation. Trust develops in predictable network patterns that by their nature run counter (are mis-aligned) to hierarchical organization. If one treats tacit knowledge as a natural resource embodied in humans (or human resource), then knowing where and how to mine the networks for tacit knowledge … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

The art of leading deep corporate change can be learned. The trick is to help each member of the company discover a new reality.

Content: Article | Authors: Jonathan D. Day, Michael Jung | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Nothing demotivates people like the equal treatment of unequals.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

We grow because you can’t otherwise provide an opportunity for talent. You have to provide that, or else change your view of who your talent should be.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

The principle behind the Leadership Organization is that people have an innate, passionate desire to contribute. Opposing this urge to contribute is fear – fear of rejection, failure, loss, retribution, or embarrassment…Earned trust tips the balance between the urge to contribute and fear. When we work in an environment of trust, and one in which leadership models trust, we feel reinforced, validated, and supported, even … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Business 2.0 | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Trust

Is your firm built on closure? Closure means coming to a specific agreement about what will be done, by whom, with a specific date for completion. You don’t leave anything dangling. “I’ll get you the report” isn’t closure because there is no time by which it will arrive. “I’ll do what I can” isn’t closure because there is no specific agreement for what will be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Business 2.0 | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Trust

Much of the frustration of everyday life can be traced to false commitments. Bounced checks, late deliveries, shoddy work, unreturned emails, laundered shirts with missing buttons, poor work performance, broken partnerships, and so on – under close examination, all of these involve issues with “commitments” that were made but not kept.

An organizational culture in which people consider their commitments carefully, and in which they absolutely … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Business 2.0 | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Trust

Can Martha Stewart regain the trust of her customers or could Enron’s former chief Ken Lay get a new job under the clouds of suspicion left in the wake of their legal problems?

It depends upon the match between how they respond to the allegations and the extent to which the alleged offense is perceived to involve their integrity or their competence, according to a recent … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cecily D. Cooper, Donald L. Ferrin, Kurt T. Dirks, Peter H. Kim | Source: Discovery@Olin | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Hope…is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Africans speak of two hungers: the lesser hunger — for the goods and services that sustain us and the means to pay for them, and the greater hunger, which has to do with understanding what life is all about.

Today, that greater hunger is even keener, for workers and executives the world over. And I worry that the only way people can satisfy it is though … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Money, Personality / Behavior

This is a great overview of the sort of characters that inhabit almost any online community (and many offline communities). [Brain Food annotation]

Content: Article | Author: Patrick Lambe | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Like any other discipline evolutionary psychology gives us insight – a very profound insight. However, it doesn’t answer the question about what we do with that insight – that’s the area of choice. Evolutionary psychology says that our choices are subject to forces and we need to be aware of this. Frequently we give in to these forces. We could argue, for example, that huge … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Economics, Personality / Behavior

Gossip and the rumour mill reflect the culture of an organization, and the quality of gossip reflects its quality – a bad culture leads to bad gossip; there will be malice and Borgia-type scheming in organizations where the culture is corrupt or full of fear. For this reason we must listen to the quality of the gossip in our organizations. Where there is little more … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

The real art of management is understanding that other people are like you. I often ask managers what their driving passions are and they tend to respond: to make a difference; to achieve; to care about their families. Then I ask them what this short list tells them and eventually someone will respond that their driving passions are probably the same as those of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

When companies merge or go through an acquisition, the lack of a cohesive culture in the newly merged company can “break a deal.” This article develops a terminology that identifies seven cultural cohesive elements common to all organizations.

Content: Article | Author: Kent Rhodes, Ed.D. | Source: Graziadio Business Report | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Work banishes the three great evils – boredom, vice and poverty.

Content: Quotation | Source: Candide | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Work

Enthusiastic employees outproduce and outperform. They step up to do the impossible. They rally each other in tough times. Most people are enthusiastic when they’re hired: hopeful, ready to work hard, eager to contribute. What happens to dampen their enthusiasm? Management, that’s what.

The Enthusiastic Employee draws on 30 years of research and experience to show you exactly what managers do wrong-and what they should do … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, Michael Irwin Meltzer | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior