The 2 Best Tools for Building an Engaged Workforce

During the early years of the industrial revolution, the formula for driving worker productivity appeared to be so much easier: give them more money and they’ll work longer and harder. That philosophy seemed to be supported by behavioral economists, who discovered the concept of “market-driven norms,” which influences the perception that a person has of their own worth in the marketplace. Many decades hence, that … [ Read more ]

Peter F. Drucker

Effective executives know when a decision has to be based on principle and when it should be made pragmatically, on the merits of the case. They know the trickiest decision is that between the right and the wrong compromise, and they have learned to tell one from the other. They know that the most time-consuming step in the process is not making the decision but … [ Read more ]

The 8 Types of Company Culture

Our work suggests that culture can be managed. The first and most important step leaders can take to maximize its value and minimize its risks is to become fully aware of how it works. By integrating findings from more than 100 of the most commonly used social and behavioral models, we have identified eight styles that distinguish a culture and can be measured.

Going From Fragile to Agile

Why do companies need to be more nimble? McKinsey’s Aaron De Smet and Chris Gagnon explain what’s driving organizational agility, why it matters, and what to do.

Jim Collins

If your company cannot be great without you, it is not yet a great company. It is merely a group of people who happen to have a leader. The test as to whether it’s a great company is it doesn’t need you.

Jim Collins

When we were studying in Built to Last, we were looking at companies that were visionary through generations, which meant sometimes you had to discount the role of any individual leader. You couldn’t say that Walt Disney was Disney because Walt Disney’s walking around anymore. There’s something about the company. And I still believe that. I still believe that even if you go back to … [ Read more ]

This Matrix Helps Growing Teams Make Great Decisions

Gil Shklarski, CTO at Flatiron Health, has adapted a framework from his executive coach Marcy Swenson to serve as a tool for his team to quickly and efficiently create alignment around decision-making — and at the same time, foster a level of psychological safety that would take fear, self-consciousness and anxiety out of the process.

Sylvie Bardaune, Sébastien Lacroix, Nicolas Maechler

Too many companies do not measure employee satisfaction or the support functions’ performance effectively and so fail to understand the needs of the employees using these internal services. The result is a diminished opportunity to take corrective action.

This Might Help Explain Why Corporate Boards Are Still an Old Boy’s Club

Companies with the highest percentage of female directors have been shown to outperform on return on equity, return on sales and return on invested capital. They pay less to gobble up other firms. They have lower stock price volatility. And those with more women at the top have even been shown to have fewer governance controversies, such as bribery and fraud. Yet according to a … [ Read more ]

What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It)

Self-awareness seems to have become the latest management buzzword — and for good reason. Research suggests that when we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat, and steal. We are better workers who get more promotions. And we’re more-effective leaders with more-satisfied employees and more-profitable … [ Read more ]

A Former FBI Agent Shares 8 Qualities of Resilient People

As business leaders and entrepreneurs, you know that success requires the resilience to keep moving ahead even when confronted with obstacles and roadblocks. You have a willingness to swim upstream and not give up simply because the tide is against you. Resilient people are successful because they possess these 8 qualities.

Iris Bohnet

About $8 billion a year is spent on diversity trainings in the United States alone. Now, I tried very hard to find any evidence I could. […] Sadly enough, I did not find a single study that found that diversity training in fact leads to more diversity. Now, that’s disappointing, discouraging, but maybe when we unpack it also understandable. The unpacking means that there’s a … [ Read more ]

Marc-David Seidel

What underlying assumptions about centralized trust do you make in your own work? How would instantaneous peer-to-peer trust with no need for a centralized third party change things? If you could meet a stranger and be able to enter into a trusted exchange without needing a third party, what changes in your theoretical perspective on the world? That model of interaction is what distributed trust … [ Read more ]

Here’s How to Wield Empathy and Data to Build an Inclusive Team

When Ciara Trinidad left her post as Lever’s Head of Diversity and Inclusion, the numbers made her understandably proud: The startup’s team of 125 people was 59% women, 39% men, and 2% gender nonconforming. Even the sales team — historically a male-dominated group — had a 50/50 gender split. “The product team was at about 40% white; the majority was a mix of every other … [ Read more ]

Untangling Your Organization’s Decision Making

Any organization can improve the speed and quality of its decisions by paying more attention to what it’s deciding.

Pedro J. Pizarro

Human beings are incredibly perceptive. And they seem to be more perceptive when they look at people above them than when they look down.

Adam Bryant

I believe it’s time to give the narrative about whether men and women lead differently a rest. Yes, we need to keep talking and writing about why there are so few women in the top ranks. But this trope about different styles of leadership among men and women seems past its expiration date.

And while we’re at it, could everyone agree to drop the predictable questions … [ Read more ]

Bill Green

You sacrifice and you’re a victim, or you sacrifice because it’s the right thing to do and you have pride in it. Huge difference. Simple thing. Huge difference.