3590 Posts Found

I’m not a great fan of reorganization. Reorganizations tend to be something you do to people, not for people. Most reorganizations that I’ve seen really were for the purpose of getting around people, solving problems that should have been addressed directly by getting rid of them. You give me the right people, and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Colin Powell | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

If you look at the psychology of loyalty—which I did—you see that it’s instinctive. It’s a survival technique that dates back to our pre-human ancestors. It’s a profound psychological need. You can’t dispense with it. At one point, we projected loyalty onto organizations. Now, we’re projecting it onto other people.

There can be other loyalties, too. Software developers are loyal to their product. They are willing … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John J. Clancy | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

I question whether the loss of loyalty, as most people define it, is really a problem. Loyalty comes with its own set of problems because it suggests that people have a sense of reliance, which can become a crutch that props up the status quo. Loyal people may not be watchful enough and may not adapt quickly enough to changing circumstances.

Content: Quotation | Author: Randy Komisar | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Rating people on a list of competencies is a flawed method for improving their performance. Obviously we need a new system. And what can we say about the new system that would serve us better? Well, the specifics of the system will depend on the company, but we do know that it must have six characteristics, each of which follows logically from the one preceding. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marcus Buckingham | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

The practice of rating individuals’ performance on a numerical scale doesn’t accomplish the task managers expect from it, which is to accelerate the performance of their people. At best, it serves other goals: allocating compensation fairly, and aligning each individual’s goals with the values and strategies of the company. However, even if these were sufficient goals, managers would still be frustrated by how poorly … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marcus Buckingham | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

As in architecture, a variety of tensions help organizations to take shape and determine the speed at which a company’s leadership vision is realized. Whether these are tensions over leadership, future vision and strategy, or resource allocation, each tugs upon alignments that determine how a company completes its work.

By leveraging such tensions and learning to manage the informal relationships that organizations thrive upon, finance leaders … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Saj-nicole Joni | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Finance, Management, Organizational Behavior

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.

Content: Article | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

People really don’t want more business information. They are up to their eyeballs in it. They want faith—faith in you, your goals, your success, the story you tell. It is faith that moves mountains, not facts. Faith needs a story to sustain it—a meaningful story.

Content: Quotation | Author: Annette Simmons | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Storytelling

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Why would you need forced rankings to get rid of bad apples if you were doing your job right as a company or leader? The best don’t wait for yearly evaluations—they deal with it now. It always amazes me that—as much as I admire GE in other ways—that they embraced six sigma (based on Deming-like logic that a system in control will have few if … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert I. Sutton | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Big companies have plenty of great ideas, but they do not innovate because they need a whole hierarchy of people to agree that a new idea is good in order to pursue it. If one smart person figures out something wrong with an idea–often to show off or to consolidate power–that’s usually enough to kill it. This leads to a Can’t Do Culture.

The trouble … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ben Horowitz | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.
1. What is the business’s value proposition and it sources of competitive advantage?
2. Which … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

An increasing number of global firms adopt a primary language for business operations—usually English. The problem: The practice can surface dormant hostilities around culture and geography, reports Tsedal Neeley.

Content: Article | Author: Kim Girard | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: International, Organizational Behavior

Almost all decisions, big and small, are choices between exploring new possibilities and exploiting old ones.

Content: Quotation | Author: Art Markman | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

Real engagement doesn’t flow from trying to convince yourself that what your company produces will change the world for the better–– a fairly fruitless quest for many. Rather, meaning must be sought in how the scope of our work allows us to reach our highest potential.

Content: Quotation | Author: Sally Helgesen | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Organizational Behavior

New research shows how companies can minimize conflicts within their top teams.

Content: Article | Author: Lindred Greer | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Companies can no longer rely on single individuals at the top to handle the complexity and uncertainty of the global environment. Instead, they need “leadership ensembles”—teams that can capitalize on diversity, stay current with developments in different parts of the world while anticipating future trends and their implications, and make smart decisions without sacrificing speed.

Leadership ensembles are groups of executives, each with distinctive expertise and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Claudy Jules, Joshua J. Bellin, Nandani Lynton, Robert J. Thomas | Source: Accenture | Subjects: International, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Passion is an overrated virtue in organizational life and indifference is an underrated virtue.

Content: Quotation | Author: Robert I. Sutton | Subject: Organizational Behavior

We consistently find that people are more likely to agree with the statement, “I get the best outcome when we both behave cooperatively” than they are with “I get my best outcome when I behave competitively and they behave cooperatively.” But we still have about 15% who say that they get the best outcome when they exploit the other person’s cooperation unilaterally, and those 15% … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Nir Halevy | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Negotiation, Organizational Behavior

There’s nothing more annoying than a meeting that goes on and on and on. As a manager, it’s your job to make sure people don’t go off on tangents or give endless speeches. But how can you keep people focused without being a taskmaster or squashing creativity?

Content: Article | Author: Amy Gallo | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior