Getting to the Critical Few Behaviors That Can Drive Cultural Change

Focusing on a “critical few” behaviors is one of the fundamental tenets of working effectively with organizational culture. Sometimes called keystone behaviors, these are patterns of acting that are tangible, repeatable, observable, and measurable, and will contribute to achieving an organization’s strategic and operational objectives. The behaviors are critical because they will have a significant impact on business performance when exhibited by large numbers of people; … [ Read more ]

Shelly Palmer

There’s a very strong confirmation bias for all content today, regardless of whether it’s entertainment, news, or just information. It will grow even stronger as technology improves. As content distributors, we are fighting the hardest fight ever: getting through the personal filters of people who have opted into their own world view. Many have no interest in getting out of it. […] The free and … [ Read more ]

How to Keep a Global Team Engaged

Life on a global team isn’t necessarily equitable. Employees far away from headquarters often have less access to the team leader. As a result, they may have a harder time getting their concerns noticed and attended to. Additionally, more peripheral members of global teams are often forced to speak in a language that’s not their own and communicate in a style that’s not necessarily second … [ Read more ]

When You Start a New Job, Pay Attention to These 5 Aspects of Company Culture

When you join an organization, you have a short window of time to adapt to its culture. It’s the old 90-day rule. And we know too many talented individuals who have stumbled in their new company because they failed to read the cultural tea leaves. This happens because most organizations don’t explain the cultural rules to newcomers, and new hires are so focused on the … [ Read more ]

Master the Art of Influence — Persuasion as a Skill and Habit

As a long-time product leader for Chrome at Google, Tyler Odean found himself using persuasion as a tool to herd massive organizations — engineers, designers and executives — toward product decisions and developments. He realized how powerful it was to be able to rally people to his and others’ points of view. Today, he regularly speaks on the topic and applies it in his role … [ Read more ]

Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen

When seeking to understand and address these [organizational] mind-sets, we like to use the image of an iceberg popularized by MIT academics Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer. Above the surface (the tip of the iceberg) is the visible behavior repeated and reinforced by the organization every day. Under the surface are employees’ thoughts and feelings (both conscious and unconscious); their values and beliefs (the things … [ Read more ]

Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen

Given all the data and practical experience that supports working on [organizational] health, companies’ obsession with the P&L alone continues to puzzle us. It’s right that leaders manage their P&L meticulously, but why not do the same for their health? In fact, why not measure health frequently throughout the year, since it’s a leading indicator of performance, whereas financial results are a lagging one? Similarly, … [ Read more ]

Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, Rob Theunissen

We think of organizational health as more than just culture or employee engagement. It’s the organization’s ability to align around a common vision, execute against that vision effectively, and renew itself through innovation and creative thinking. Put another way, health is how the ship is run, no matter who is at the helm and what waves rock the vessel.

Women in the Workplace 2017

More companies are committing to gender equality. But progress will remain slow unless we confront blind spots on diversity—particularly regarding women of color, and employee perceptions of the status quo.

Adam Galinsky, Maurice Schweitzer

[The] question — should we cooperate or should we compete — is often the wrong one. Our most important relationships are neither cooperative nor competitive. Instead, they are both. Rather than choosing a single course of action, we need to understand that cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously and we must nimbly shift between the two, and that how we navigate the tension between these … [ Read more ]

Peter F. Drucker

The flaw in so many policy statements, especially those of business, is that they contain no action commitment—to carry them out is no one’s specific work and responsibility. Small wonder then that the people in the organization tend to view such statements cynically, if not as declarations of what top management is really not going to do.

Peter F. Drucker

It is a waste of time to worry about what will be acceptable and what the decision maker should or should not say so as not to evoke resistance. (The things one worries about seldom happen, while objections and difficulties no one thought about may suddenly turn out to be almost insurmountable obstacles.) In other words, the decision maker gains nothing by starting out with … [ Read more ]

The Indispensable Document for the Modern Manager

Jay Desai has FOMU. As a first-time founder and CEO of health technology startup PatientPing, he’s got a healthy fear of messing up. This anxiety especially bubbles to the surface when it has to do with his team — now over 100 employees — and particularly the seven who report directly to him. He’s seen too many immensely talented and productive teams stall because of … [ Read more ]

Focusing on What Works for Workplace Diversity

For faster progress, companies need to draw on the power of design, rethink their assumptions, and use data to inform decision making.

Robert Cialdini, Theodore Kinni

We not only assign undue levels of importance to whatever captures our attention at a certain point in time, but also assign causality to it.

Eric Garton

A well-designed operating model involves far more than the lines and boxes or spans and layers in the organization chart. It includes accountabilities. Who has P&L authority? Who on that org chart has the authority to make which decisions? As companies move to more agile operating models, they must learn to balance accountability with autonomy. A new operating model also requires a governance structure and … [ Read more ]

Women Matter: Ten Years of Insights on Gender Diversity

A decade into our research, we highlight key findings—and invite 16 global leaders to look at how to increase gender diversity in corporations and imagine the inclusive company of the future.

Randy Cook, Stefan de Raedemaecker, Jacek Fabianowicz, Alessandra Fantoni

The change-management literature has long focused on the need to overcome resistance. But resistance can imply intent, when in reality people often revert to old behavior out of habit or instinct, reflecting old mind-sets that may persist even after an apparently successful initial transformation.

A Taxonomy of Troublemakers for Those Navigating Difficult Colleagues

Dr. Jody Foster categorizes the types of people whom others find difficult at work — and shares how to identify and interact with them. She outlines the telltale signs of two of the most common profiles and suggests language to avoid and embrace to make headway with them. Whether you’re 5 or 5,000 people strong at your company, use this guide to troubleshoot these archetypes … [ Read more ]