3590 Posts Found

This graphically modern and interactive volume demands that readers get themselves-and their businesses-out of whatever rut they’re in. By first encouraging the acknowledgment of being stuck, Yamashita and Spataro, a consultant and business school professor, respectively, pave the way for escape. They describe the seven emotional manifestations of being stuck (feeling alone, overwhelmed, directionless, battle-torn, worthless, hopeless, exhausted) and provide guidance for moving past them, … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Keith Yamashita, Sandra Spataro | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

“How can teams function optimally? And why do they become dysfunctional in the first place? In many cases, a team stagnates despite persistent and well intentioned attempts to address key issues. Or, interventions appear to help initially, but short-term progress quickly evaporates. To create long-term improvement, teams need a more systemic discipline of team learning – one that integrates existing approaches and tools while providing … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: David Kantor, Joel Yanowitz, Steven Ober | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

As psychologist Melvin Lerner demonstrated in the 1960s, people have a need to believe that life is controllable, and that life’s outcomes are fair. But life isn’t “fair.” People’s life circumstances are quite diverse and subject to chance events. Thus considered, any sense that fairness exists at all is an illusion – albeit a widespread one!

Content: Quotation | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subject: Personality / Behavior

A McKinsey survey shows that most companies are poor at developing their executives-often, because of a belief that talent will rise by itself or that needed skills can always be brought in from outside. But leaving executive development to chance is risky.

The take-away:
Companies need to focus much more on developing internal talent. They should follow five principles: ensuring that executive development is a … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Helen Handfield-Jones | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

“Very little of the current debate about business ethics has to do with serious ethical problems. Most so-called ethical failures in business are either the result of illegal activities or of breaches of civil contracts – often in situations where there is an imbalance of information or power and one of the parties has taken advantage of its position.

I suggest that the real problems, in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Robert Cochrane | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subject: Ethics

Until recently, most business people possessed a bedrock of faith in the efficiency, power, and fairness of markets. And a great deal of it was justified. When trade occurs freely, the maximum amount of wealth is created for the largest number of people. There is no more effective social system for organizing people and allocating resources than markets. But while markets are efficient, there’s nothing … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Sally Blount-Lyon | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subjects: Economics, Organizational Behavior

In an excerpt from Harvard Business School Press’ Hidden Power of Social Networks, learn how “social network analysis” reveals problems your org chart ignores.

Editor’s Note: For a much better article on this topic (and one of my favorites), see “Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust”

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Parker, Rob Cross | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The problem here is that all people are not created equal, though America is driven by this noble falsehood, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Stirring and instructive nonsense, but nonsense nevertheless. We aren’t equal. We don’t all have the same capabilities, the same chances, or the same luck. We don’t even have the same inclinations.

Here’s the idea: Everybody thinks he or … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Achievement, Personality / Behavior

In this adaptation of a chapter from The Will to Manage (1966), by the late McKinsey managing director Marvin Bower, the author writes that a company’s philosophy evolves as a set of rules or guidelines that gradually become established, through trial and error or through leadership, as expected patterns of behavior. Bower, who died in January 2003, explores five such basic beliefs found in the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marvin Bower | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

This article sets forth Arthur D. Little’s our current understanding, based on more than a century of work with leading organizations around the world, of the concepts, philosophy, mindset, tools, and methodologies that support effective change and learning in organizations.

Editor’s Note: contains some excellent insights…

Content: Article | Authors: Arun N. Maira, David A. Garvin, Joan L. Bragar, P Ranganath Nayak | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Surprise: Managers are not always rational decision makers. In this interview, professors Rogelio Oliva and Noel Watson discuss how human behavior affects supply chain coordination.

Content: Article | Author: Sarah Jane Johnston | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Operations, Organizational Behavior

Companies that are stuck in a rut look to Keith Yamashita to find out how to get back on track.

Content: Article | Author: Jennifer Reingold | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, People

I do not believe China should be forced to hold democratic elections, even if that were possible. Its population would vote for leaders who distribute wealth to the poor. But there are still 900 million farmers in China with an average annual income of $500; distribution of wealth would simply be a synonym, as it is in India, for the distribution of poverty.

The Western … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: International, Politics

If you have reason to believe that motivation is or is becoming an issue in your work environment, don’t look for external solutions. Instead, chances are you’ll find critical employee issues are actually resulting from a host of internal management practices that are throttling your best and brightest. We’ve isolated some of the worst of these; we call them “The Deadly Half-Dozen” or “Six Sure … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Brian E. Powers | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

It can be said that the human being has changed very little during the known course of history. The statements by Plato, Aristotle, or Seneca about the human being, his/her behaviour and conduct, are as accurate today as they were in ancient times. We gain, therefore, valuable insight when we interpret current developments and the future in light of historical analogies.

Content: Quotation | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: History, Personality / Behavior

Entrepreneurs have long used psychological tests to screen potential employees. Here’s how to use tests to get more out of the workers you already have.

Content: Article | Author: Rod Kurtz | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Organizations sometimes practice an unconscious hypocrisy, preaching a people-focused leadership style while rewarding managers solely on the basis of financial and operating results. This causes managers to focus more on the bottom-line results than on the process of obtaining them. Often this leads to a number of counterproductive outcomes, such as managers’ resorting to demanding, autocratic, or punitive leadership in order to get short-term results. … [ Read more ]

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

Most people do have great value that they can offer, however they are poor at communicating what that value is. Therefore, often it is not the person with the most innate talent that gets hired; it is the person who can best articulate, in a winning way, what their talent is that gets them the job offer.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Career, Communication

It is impossible to separate the performance and well-being of organizations from the performance and well-being of their members. To provide people with mean­ingful work and rewards, organizations need to be successful. And to be successful, organizations need high-performing individuals. The challenge is to design organizations that perform at high levels and treat people in ways that are motivating and satisfying.

Treating people in ways that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Edward E. Lawler III | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The search for the “ideal” method of management has been documented for over a century. It continues unabated in many organisations in spite of definitive research showing it to be a fruitless quest. Fortunately a decade or so ago a clear breakthrough occurred in management thinking. This was the concept of management competencies.

Content: Article | Author: Robin Stuart-Kotze | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior