3590 Posts Found

At the root of every conflict is a commitment not honored, an idea not realized and an opportunity misunderstood.

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subject: Personality / Behavior

“In groups, leadership is believed to fulfil two primary goals:
– to complete group tasks
– to fulfil group members’ needs

However, a third function of leadership is to promote group integrity – maintaining the group as a viable system. Such integrity is largely the result of successful task completion and group member satisfaction – the two primary goals above – but it can … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Mark Van Vugt | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

According to George Bernard Shaw, a reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him while an unreasonable man adapts the surrounding conditions to himself. A person’s success is thus a product of whether he is Master of Circumstances (MC) or a Victim of Circumstances (VC).

original Shaw quote:
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: LeaderValues | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Success / Failure

“In the recently published Intentional Revolutions, A Seven Point Strategy for Transforming Organizations, my co-authors and I have developed a definition of organizational transformation and an approach that increases an organization’s ability to sustain that transformation. In the course of conducting research for the book, we discovered a remarkable similarity in the profiles of senior executives and the roles they played in initiating and sustaining … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Joan Lancourt | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

A corporation…is like a complex computer system, an intricate form of artificial life running on thousands of brains networked together. In that context, a reengineering plan (or any process design) is an algorithm. The computer is the company. The bits are people. The routines are business processes. The operating system is the organization’s culture. And you can program corporations as if they are giant multiprocessor … [ Read more ]

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

There truly is a world of difference between organizations that view their challenge as better managing complexity and those that want to better manage simplicity. The design sensibilities – and their implications – are profoundly different.

The sociology of complexity is every bit as important as the technology of complexity. The problem, as everyone who’s tried to do it well knows, is that it’s very … [ Read more ]

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

Turning complex issues and opportunities into effectively simple – as opposed to simplistic or easy – constructs is truly the managerial art form of this new millennium. Instead of seeking “best” or “optimal” solutions to managerial problems, organizations and the people who run them have to become more creative about how they manage clarity and simplicity. Spending an extra two or three weeks on making … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Change Management, Communication

Successful companies are creating high-performance IT organizations in part by changing what people do. And they are not only seeing compelling short-term results. These companies also are laying the groundwork for long-term success by creating IT organizations that are inherently agile-learning, growing and changing as the business evolves.

Content: Article | Authors: Stephen D. Page, Susan R. Pearson | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Organizational Behavior

How do you go from developing great ideas about ethics and what they mean, to an organization that actually lives those values? This article lays out general principles for how to do that.

Content: Article | Author: Bruce A. Hamm | Source: CEO Refresher | Subject: Ethics

Is that ticking you hear a clock or a time-bomb? Employees who abuse time will sap a business’s morale and operations. Problem is, these can also be your best employees.

Content: Article | Author: Steven Berglas | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Please accept the fact that the human race is split three ways: some people can take in information by looking at figures, some by looking at graphs, and a third group only by touching it, feeling it, or writing it.

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

Men involved in technical innovation in a corporation confront a situation in which the need for action is clear but the action itself is not…. So long as this situation exists, the corporation cannot function effectively, because it is not designed for uncertainty – a situation in which there are no clear objectives to reach, no measures of accomplishment, and no proper concept of control. … [ Read more ]

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

“For six years, my research team at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business carried out an extensive investigation of business breakdowns—not just missteps, but major business failures…At almost every one of the 51 companies we investigated, we were able to interview people who could give us firsthand accounts of what happened. In all we conducted 197 interviews of CEOs, former CEOs, other top executives, and midlevel … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Sydney Finkelstein | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The team at the top may be the most difficult to manage and lead. Rivalries, strong personalities and different notions of the future make it a tough job indeed. But if the teams are structured right, they can be of immense value to the company.

Content: Article | Author: David A. Nadler | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Organizational Behavior

New case studies in Denmark highlight the value which is lost when managers fail to tackle the human challenge of the corporate intranet.

Content: Article | Author: Jens Gammelgaard | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Knowledge Management, Organizational Behavior

Dr. Michael Leiter, director of the Centre for Organizational Research and Development (COR&D) at Acadia University, says that there are things that management can do to help reduce stress in the workplace. He identifies six areas of worklife that need to be in balance in order to help avoid workplace stress and build engagement with work: workload, sense of community, control, reward, values and fairness. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Laura Churchill | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Show me a [person] who is afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a [person] you can beat every time.

Content: Quotation | Source: FinanceProfessor.com | Subjects: Competition, Personality / Behavior

A few decades ago, our lives were centered in places. We had the most in common with our village or city neighbors, with the people geographically closest to us. Place formed our connections to the social groups that mattered most: our tribes, churches, jobs, and schools. The defining politics — and so, defining values — were those rooted in physical communities.

Today, place has lost relevance … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Culture, Trends / Analysis

Empowerment is one of the buzzwords of the ’90s. Yet most organizational empowerment efforts fall short of making any substantive impact. Why? We believe alignment is the key. Empowerment without alignment is dysfunctional. It doesn’t help. In fact, it often exacerbates existing conflicts and counterproductive behaviors. Well-intentioned, committed people make escalating errors and become progressively more frustrated and disenfranchised. And then the leadership responds by … [ Read more ]

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

From childhood on, individuals are told that setting goals for themselves will make them more successful in whatever they set out to do – whether it’s win tennis games, ace their exams or become CEO of their company. But goal-setting also has a dark side to it, according to a recent research paper by a Wharton faculty member and two colleagues. In addition to motivating … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bambi Douma, Lisa Ordonez, Maurice Schweitzer | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Ethics