3605 Posts Found

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

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

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

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

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As functional effectiveness increases, the greatest opportunity for corporate performance improvement will come from cross-functional integration. Organizations worldwide are recognizing how departments that strive for their own optimal performance can combine to produce sub-optimal results for the business.

Interestingly enough, the focus of management improvement trends in this century follows a similar pattern, from task efficiency to functional excellence to cross-functional integration. The logical next step … [ Read more ]

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

“Oorganizational silence” is a potentially dangerous impediment to organizational learning and change. It can hamper the development of truly pluralistic organizations – ones that value and allow for the expression of multiple perspectives and opinions. But to date, there has been little systematic academic exploration of why “organizational silence” is pervasive, or of the consequences of widespread silence – even in an era in which … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison, Frances J. Milliken | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Cognitive biases and mental shortcuts can lead managers into costly errors of judgment.

Content: Article | Author: Edward Teach | Source: CFO Publishing | Subject: Organizational Behavior

We hew to laws against stealing because there is already cultural consensus that stealing is wrong, rooted in the fact that the thief deprives the good citizen of the stolen property. To copy an idea does no such thing; wrote Jefferson, “he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” It does indeed deprive the original author of the ability to monopolize … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Darwin Magazine | Subjects: Ethics, Legal