3590 Posts Found

There’s a pretty healthy tradition in the U.S. of socializing debt and privatizing gain. I don’t think it’s worked out very well.

Content: Quotation | Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, Government, Politics

In his book The Will to Lead, Marvin Bower urges senior managers to abandon command-and-control structures and adopt a program to develop leaders, starting with themselves. In this excerpt, he explores the attributes of leadership.

Editor’s Note: for someone of the author’s experience and reputation, I expected more from this piece. I am not saying there isn’t anything of value, but much of it is … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marvin Bower | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

There’s a lot of research that says that people are motivated and retained by three critical things. The first and most important is their personal development. The second is social connectiveness. In other words, they really like the people they work with; a great team they’re with; their boss nurtures and supports them and gives them feedback. Third is that they’re recognized, and part of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Christopher A. Bartlett | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

I’ve been studying decision-making at the top for many years, and what I’ve found is that good decisions nearly always result from robust decision processes. Similarly, decisions that go wrong nearly always stem from procedural or organizational failures. In fact, when I and my colleagues at Bain & Co. conduct postmortems into decisions, we find that just five mistakes account for the vast majority of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Michael C. Mankins | Sources: Harvard Business Review, The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

It is part of management’s role to see that all the interactions that take place internally are performed more efficiently than they could be in an open market. That is, the savings in transaction costs must be greater than the increase in administrative costs and the potential decrease in motivation. Many companies find that applying this logic to their organizational models leads to a rethinking … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jeffrey W. Bennett, Paul F. Kocourek, Steven B. Hedlund, Thomas E. Pernsteiner | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Corporations of any significant size cannot make all the necessary transactional decisions “with one mind.” To provide manageable spans of control and to benefit from functional specialization, companies are forced to subdivide their organizations. Unfortunately, this subdivision fragments the information, decision rights, measures, and rewards that guide individual decisions. Rational individuals tend to strive for narrow optimums defined by functional or business-unit objectives, rather than … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jeffrey W. Bennett, Paul F. Kocourek, Steven B. Hedlund, Thomas E. Pernsteiner | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Finding the proper organizational model for a given firm is inherently difficult, but not impossible. If aligning the organization with the strategy is necessary for success, then finding out how the organization is impeding the strategy can lead to important insights about what has to change. Most organizations were not built by master designers; they have evolved over time in response to forces they see … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jeffrey W. Bennett, Paul F. Kocourek, Steven B. Hedlund, Thomas E. Pernsteiner | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

There will always be advantages to size and scope, but the industrial company was built for optimization, not innovation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gary Hamel | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

Change compelled by crisis is usually seen as a threat, not an opportunity.

Content: Quotation | Author: Rosabeth Moss Kanter | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

For executive leaders, character is framed by drive, competence, and integrity. Most senior executives have the drive and competence necessary to lead. But too often organizations elevate people who lack the moral compass. I call them “destructive achievers.” They are seldom evil people, but by using resources for no higher purpose than achievement of their own goals, they often diminish the enterprise. Such leaders seldom … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Warren Bennis | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Character, Integrity, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Once formed, mindsets become more and more deeply ingrained through a reinforcing loop. Mindsets condition our perceptions, which dictate what we experience. Our experiences reinforce our original mindsets and close the loop. In organizations, this phenomenon tends to manifest as separate “mindset factions” e.g., in R&D, Marketing, and Manufacturing. Members of various factions see things differently, yet all believe they are unarguably and self-evidently “right” … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Floyd, Frank Morris, Geoffrey Marlow, Jean-Philippe Deschamps | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Experience, Organizational Behavior

The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on self-control. A related keystone of character is being able to motivate and guide oneself, whether in doing homework, finishing a job, or getting up in the morning. And, as we have seen, the ability to defer gratification and to control and channel one’s urges to act is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Goleman | Subjects: Character, Personal Development, Personality / Behavior

Companies create value by offering products and services that profitably address a market need. However, this basic mission can be undermined by the absence of a value-centered culture—policies and philosophies that shape employee behavior. Qualities like aligned leadership, effective communication and ingrained motivation contribute heavily to a value-centered culture.

Content: Article | Authors: Elliot Brook, Lukas Tande, Richard R. Smith, Robert Bergström, Tiffany Brown DeVaughn | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

While quotas have proven to be a successful method for motivating employees in some situations, they also tend to spur a host of unintended consequences.

Content: Article | Author: Matthew Bidwell | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

These tested ideas can help organizations overcome inertia and implement their strategies more effectively.

Content: Article | Authors: Marja Engel, Michael Birshan, Olivier Sibony | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Decisions are the coin of the realm in business. No company can reach its full potential unless it makes good decisions quickly and consistently and then implements them effectively. For more than 25 years, the three authors have consulted to organizations of all sorts and noticed all these organizations share one consistent trait: when they focus explicitly on decisions, they improve their performance. This article … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Marcia Blenko, Michael C. Mankins, Paul Rogers | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips

It is practically a given that a company should have a formal vision statement. Like any leadership tool, it is only effective if it is done right. Research over the past three decades has consistently demonstrated that a vision statement can improve organizational performance as well as individual follower performance, but only if the vision contains certain characteristics.

Content: Article | Author: Shelley Kirkpatrick | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

In the fast-paced modern economy, businesses can no longer rely on just one organizational design, argues John Kotter in a new book, Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. Why we need two “operating systems.” PLUS Book excerpt.

Content: Article | Authors: John P. Kotter, Kim Girard | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

People automatically associate input related to quantity (how long it takes to make a car) with output quality (how well it performs). While in many cases, input information does directly correspond to outcome, in some cases it does not. Yet humans are hardwired to automatically associate input and output. And people can prey on your input bias, causing you to make poor decisions or judgments … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Maurice Schweitzer, Stephanie Overby | Source: CIO Magazine | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development, Personality / Behavior, Thought

Douglas Stone, coauthor of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It Is Off-Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood), introduces a cautionary lesson in assessing others from Embodied Leadership: A Somatic Approach to Developing Your Leadership, by Pete Hamill.

Content: Article | Authors: Douglas Stone, Pete Hamill | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development