3590 Posts Found

Diverse workplaces require emotional maturity, and that means confronting “rankism.”

Content: Article | Author: Art Kleiner | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Presents a participative, systems approach to corporate development, called Interactive Planning. Shows how to formulate the problems and opportunities of corporate growth, as well as presenting objectives and ideals to be pursued and the means toward those ends. Also stresses the implementation and control of the planning function.

Content: Book | Author: Russell L. Ackoff | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Focus and attention convey genuine respect, which is the cornerstone of trust.

Content: Quotation | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Trust

The success stories I am familiar with have involved treating behavioral change as a marketing campaign. They shook the dust off their consumer marketing textbooks and used the classic techniques of brand management and communication and incentives to promote the hell out of the change to the people inside the organization.

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

“Change or die” has become the rallying cry of companies around the globe. But despite these brave words, actual, sustainable change often remains an elusive ideal as companies flounder around in a foaming sea of buzzwords, theories, and approaches. Leaders wonder: Should we downsize … or rightsize … bring in TQM … empower the workforce … maybe reengineer … or find our core competence? For … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Robert M. Tomasko | Subject: Organizational Behavior

This study develops a model of the determinants of individual commitment to the implementation of the decision (decision commitment). Decision commitment requires each individual in a decision-making group to understand the hows, whys and wherefores of the group decision (decision understanding). Attaining decision understanding comes about through constructive controversy, referred to as task conflict in this study. However, the generation of task conflict may lead … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Anthony E. Boardman, Malcolm R. Clark | Source: 16th Annual IACM Conference Melbourne | Subject: Organizational Behavior

What happens with fear is that probability doesn’t matter very much. That is, once I have raised the possibility that something terrible can happen to your child, even though the possibility is remote, you may find it very difficult to think of anything else. Emotion becomes dominant. And emotion is dominated primarily by the possibility, by what might happen, and not so much by the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

Are women still at a disadvantage when it comes to attaining career success? Yes and no, says a new study. Women across the board seem to be enjoying greater parity with men-except in “good-old-boy companies,” where a woman’s personal style and needs for work/family balance may clash with organizational expectations, values, and demands.

Content: Article | Authors: Charles O’Reilly, Olivia O’Neill | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Women in Business

We know a lot about the conditions under which groups work well and work poorly. It’s really clear that groups are superior to individuals in recognizing an answer as correct when it comes up. But when everybody in a group is susceptible to similar biases, groups are inferior to individuals, because groups tend to be more extreme than individuals. One of the major biases in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Risk Management

If I had one wish, it is to see organizations dedicating some effort to study their own decision processes and their own mistakes, and to keep track so as to learn from those mistakes. I think this isn’t happening. I can see a lot of factors acting against the possibility of that happening. But if I had to pick one thing, that would be it. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Management

The Nobel Prize-winning economist parses the roles of emotion, cognition, and perception in the understanding of business risk.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Schrage | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, People

Much of the advice that has been given to corporations about managing change is bad, according to Eric Abrahamson, a professor of management at Columbia Business School. In Change Without Pain, he takes to task the advocates of “creative destruction” and the mantra of “change or perish,” which he suggests has been “overprescribed by gurus for decades.” He argues that adaptive change is most successful … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Eric Abrahamson | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Not everyone is in favor of inclusion when it comes to decision making. Some people just want to be told what to do because they are looking to you, as the manager, for guidance and they expect you, as the president of the company, to know what is best. It is more of a parental relationship. If the parents look lost or ask the children … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

I never did give anybody hell, I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subjects: Communication, Leadership

When research on leadership pays more attention to financial results than a person’s ability to give the company a sense of purpose, something crucial is lost. Three Harvard Business School scholars are working to change the debate. A Q&A with Joel M. Podolny, Rakesh Khurana, and Marya Hill-Popper.

Content: Article | Author: Martha Lagace | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

In this second volume of The Drucker Foundation’s Wisdom to Action Series, twenty-seven remarkable thought leaders help today’s leaders meet the challenge of releasing the power of innovation. Leading for Innovation brings together Clayton M. Christensen, Jim Collins, Howard Gardner, Charles Handy, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, C. William Pollard, Margaret Wheatley, and other thought leaders to offer you practical guidance on leading your organization to a … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Frances Hesselbein, Iain Somerville, Marshall Goldsmith | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

New thinking is needed on the relationship between corporate centre and business units.

Content: Article | Authors: Allan Gasson, David Pettifer, Tania Coke | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

“The Modern Firm develops conceptual frameworks for analyzing the interrelations between organizational design features, competitive strategy and the business environment. Written in a non-technical language, the book is nevertheless based on rigorous modeling and draws on numerous examples, from the eighteenth century fur trading companies to modern firms such as BP and Nokia. Finally the book explores why these developments are happening now, pointing to … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: John Roberts | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

A study by Cornell and the University of Colorado found that spending money on experiences is more fulfilling than spending it on possessions. So if you’ve got a product, you’d better get busy turning it into an experience. This idea also has serious consequences for companies who have always assumed that the way to keep employees happy is to promise them more money.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Personality / Behavior

Processes improve fastest when those involved in the improvement effort understand the whole process rather than just their piece of it.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Process, Reengineering