3588 Posts Found

Content: Book | Author: David A. Nadler | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

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“Although managers were supposed to be graded on teamwork, Enron was actually far more reflective of a survival-of-the-fittest mind-set. The culture was heavily built around star players with little value attached to team-building. The upshot: The organization rewarded highly competitive people who were less likely to share power, authority, or information. Indeed, some believe the extreme focus on individual ambition undermined any teamwork or institutional … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: John A. Byrne, Mike France, Wendy Zellner | Source: BusinessWeek | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Although communities of practice develop organically, a carefully crafted design can drive their evolution. In this excerpt from a new book, the authors detail seven design principles. The payoff? Knowledge management that works.

Editor’s Note: see related article at
Content: Article | Authors: Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, William M. Snyder | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Knowledge Management, Organizational Behavior

“I link motivation to the other major dimensions of managing by focusing on McClelland’s three most important motivational needs in an organisational setting – the need for achievement, the need for power, and the need for affiliation. These three basic needs tend to manifest themselves in either Green, Amber or Red behaviour.”

Editor’s Note: You should read Mach One – Managing Yourself and Others before … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Rick Roskin | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Although people profess to learn from their mistakes, their behavior is shaped by their successes. This is why change is hard for people. Confronted with failure, or with a new world where the old tricks aren’t working any more, most people keep doing what they have been doing, only harder.

Content: Quotation | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

There are few universals in life, but transference is one. What transference says is that no relationship we have is a new relationship; all relationships are colored by previous relationships.

Content: Quotation | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subject: Personality / Behavior

“Dialogue is not the same as negotiation…All the executives interviewed agree that dialogue is a vital kind of human interaction and that its presence or absence is critical to business success or failure…The seven Deep Dialog drivers [are] as follows:

1. Bridging begins with an openness to differences…

2. Bonding starts with a person seeking and beginning to find personal chemistry, with limited … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Howard V. Perlmutter | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. They filter everything through their own paradigm and experiences, so that what they hear may not be what you said.

Content: Quotation | Source: TechRepublic | Subject: Communication

Kets de Vries makes two key arguments. One, organizations, like people, have psychological styles. Two, people are not so straightforward. “There are few universals in life, but transference is one,” he writes. “What transference says is that no relationship we have is a new relationship; all relationships are colored by previous relationships.” And this doesn’t just mean previous work relationships. Psychologists like Kets de Vries … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Manfred Kets de Vries | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The focus of this Just Thinking piece is that an organization implementing an innovation process needs to understand the dynamic and evolving nature of organizational behavior and culture. Too often, innovation processes fail to recognize that companies change, learn, and improve with time. As a result, the solutions are static. This Just Thinking will help to clarify how a company can migrate, over time, towards … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

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“A new study by Bain & Company, the management consultants, has found that employment benefits, intended as a means of retaining loyalty, can also serve as something of a trap – for both employer and employee. The study found that companies are confused about the difference between commitment and endurance, and risk creating and rewarding a culture of presenteeism…researchers expected to find that workers with … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Stephen Overell | Source: Financial Times | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Several management writers have identified common threads to successful change, including focus on the organization’s mission and core competencies while re-designing structures around processes. But what happens when an organization’s mission becomes obsolete, and its core competencies have sharply diminished in value?

Content: Case Study | Sources: Los Alamos, ManagementFirst | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Here is an interesting series of articles by Professor Rick Roskin, of Memorial University in Canada. They are based upon his research on the subject of management style, which he calls Mach One. It is powerful but simple to remember, being based on an analogy with traffic lights – red, amber, green.

Editor’s Note: An interesting extension of this model would be its usefulness in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Rick Roskin | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Influential voices are suggesting that far from whistleblowing – informing on organizations that commit illegal or unethical acts, provide poor value for money, or endanger health and safety – being subversive and undesirable, it may sometimes deserve high praise. The increasing interest in business ethics has gone hand-in-glove with the interest in whistleblowing.

Content: Article | Author: Gerald Vinten | Source: ManagementFirst | Subject: Ethics

Create a work environment that motivates people toward exceptional performance using the most valued benefits and the PRIDE system.

Content: Article | Author: Gregory P. Smith | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values.

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

“Do this and you’ll get that.” These six words sum up the popular way in which American business strives to improve performance in the workplace. And it is very popular. At least three of four American corporations rely on some sort of incentive program. After all, such incentives are basically rewards, and rewards work, don’t they?

The answer, surprisingly, is mostly no. While rewards are effective … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Alfie Kohn | Source: Innovation Network | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

When responsible action, the natural love of learning, and the desire to do good work are already part of who we are, then the tacit assumption to the contrary can be fairly described as dehumanizing.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior