3605 Posts Found

This article offers a difficult message because it asks us to reverse many of the recent motivations in business. It asks us to seek selflessness rather than selfishness. It uses old-fashioned words like “duty” and re-interprets Maslow’s concept of self-actualization in a most enlightening fashion. It asks us to take responsibility for what we do. At one point, the author says:

“Mere work ethic is not … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: M.P. Bhattathiri | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subjects: Ethics, Management

There is an old African proverb: When the sun comes up, the gazelle wakes up knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be eaten. The lion knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. So it doesn’t matter if you are a gazelle or a lion, when the sun comes up, you had better be running. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

What can top management teams do to ensure successful large-scale transformations efforts? Early analysis of data from a major research study – the Developing Global Organizational Capability project – along with interviews with CEOs who have led successful transformation efforts suggest that top teams should implement two linked approaches simultaneously:

1. Take the 10 steps that will bring about successful transformation.
2. Align the 5-M’s™: meaning, mindset, mobilization,

… [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Douglas A. Ready | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

It’s commonly believed that the more time we devote to a project, the better the results. Not so. Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer tells Senior Writer Stephanie Overby how CIOs can correct “input bias” and stop confusing quantity with quality.

Content: Article | Authors: Maurice Schweitzer, Stephanie Overby | Source: CIO Magazine | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Young organizations (like puppies and kittens) inherit agility as a birthright. As they mature, it takes work to hold on to those youthful properties. As organizations age, routines and established strategies become embedded. This constitutes a blind spot or obstacle when an unknown situation is faced.

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Information technology has helped reduce boundaries between cultures and nationalities, adding fillip globally to organizational change. The impact on women as a representative group however, has not been as distinctive. On the one hand, transformations in social structure and relations have driven changes in roles and behaviour patterns. On the other hand, there are (gendercentric) resistances to change, perversely also on the part of women … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jharna Sengupta Biswas | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subject: Women in Business

Workplace violence is seldom the freak episode that the media portrays it to be. Read what Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, says you should be on the lookout for.

Content: Article | Author: Daintry Duffy | Source: CSO Magazine | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Organizational Behavior

The prudent reformer, according to [Adam] Smith, will respect ‘the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people,’ and when he cannot establish what is right, ‘he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong.’ His goal is not to create the ideal, but to ‘establish the best that the people can bear.’

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

In his book “A Conflict of Visions,” the economist Thomas Sowell argues that much of the philosophical debate of the last 200 years has been shaped by the struggle between two competing views of the world.

The “Unconstrained View” is based on the premise that man is basically good and has a natural desire to behave in ways that maximize the benefit to society as … [ Read more ]

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

For individuals and teams who want to master complex skills, practice is essential. Practice enables athletes to excel at sports, musicians to master music, and actors to enchant audiences. Practice works by allowing people to use skills in multiple low-risk experiences in special settings known as “practice fields.” Here demands for superb performance, credibility, and confidence are temporarily suspended, exploratory inquiry is allowed, and “not … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cliff Bolster, Jennifer M. Kemeny, Jimmy Carter, Marilyn Paul, Richard H. Gregg | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

It is worthwhile to distinguish between two possible goals in making a PowerPoint presentation-information presentation, in which the goal is to present information to the audience, and cognitive guidance, in which the goal is to guide the audience in their processing of the presented information. When your goal is information presentation, PowerPoint slides can be full of information that may be extremely hard to process … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Communication

There is a basic truth about what a human needs in order to survive; our culture seems unable to understand that. Human nature survives and has survived through the ages by being able to hold on tenaciously to two concepts: What is there about my life or world that has remained constant? and What is there about my life or world that has changed or … [ Read more ]

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

How Organizational Practices Can Compensate for Individual Shortcomings

Content: Article | Authors: Joshua Klayman, Richard Larrick | Source: Capital Ideas | Subject: Organizational Behavior

What makes your top performers so productive? If you knew, you could hire more people like them. Traditional measures can’t unlock the mysteries, because they don’t reflect human nature and job experience, but some companies are coming closer to answering this question.

Content: Article | Author: Carol Orsag Madigan | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Learning is an essential part of any company’s effort to change and innovate. But to be successful, learning must be extended to strategy and management issues and involve the direct participation of senior executives. It’s a price too many CEOs are unwilling to pay.

Content: Article | Author: Jane Linder | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

A study of the vast structural and cultural change at the Belgian telcoms operator Belgacom illustrates the importance of seeing the ‘big picture’ and learning to adapt while on the move.

Editor’s Note: offers an excellent review of five different models of organisational change

Content: Article | Authors: Alain Vas, Marc Ingham | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

By now, plenty were supposed to be in the corner offices. It’s not working out that way. In many fields, men still rule, while women often choose more nuanced paths that keep them from reaching the top. But who are the real winners?

Content: Article | Author: Linda Tischler | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Career, Women in Business

To answer this question, you first have to answer another, says columnist Stever Robbins: Just what is it you are trying to motivate in your employees?

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

The first thing a leader needs to understand is how the organization is feeling – is it very proud of what it is achieving? And that’s a contact issue and a “smell” issue as you “go walkabout.”

The second thing you notice when things are going right is that people take more risks. People understand that we’re in a risk business. Capitalism is about taking risks … [ Read more ]

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

Catching the right moment to take action when successful business models begin to wane requires skilled detection work and the courage to face reality. In this article on value migration — the process by which changing markets and new competitors threaten a company’s equilibrium — a system of early-warning diagnostics is recommended.

Content: Article | Authors: Adrian J. Slywotzky, Benson P. Shapiro, Richard S. Tedlow | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy