3605 Posts Found

Bridging the gap between vision and action.

Content: Article | Author: Mark Nadler | Source: Oliver Wyman | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

High-performing companies align people management practices to the corporate culture (“cultural fit”) and to the business strategy and long-term objectives of the organization (“strategic fit”). This tight coupling of internal practices, culture and strategy remains unique for each organization and is difficult for competitors to imitate. While rivals can poach a few employees or can try to mimic some strategic moves, rarely will they be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Research shows that many more employees would opt for flexible work models if the offerings better met their needs and if they saw visible success stories. For employers, the rewards can be huge: increased employee satisfaction, loyalty and retention. This Bain study investigates how to get this virtuous flywheel going.

Content: Article | Authors: Julie Coffman, Russ Hagey | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Originally devised to analyze the individual needs of a company’s most-profitable customers, Net Promoter® Score (NPS®) is equally powerful in understanding the work-life requirements of a company’s employees. As opposed to standard “satisfaction inquiries,” NPS reveals people’s willingness to stake their personal reputation on the product, service or organization in question.

Here’s how NPS works: Participants rate the “would recommend” question on a zero-to- 10 … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Julie Coffman, Russ Hagey | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: Babson Insight | Subject: Decision Making

The theory of intelligent memory suggests that companies relying on conventional creativity tools are getting shortchanged.

Content: Article | Author: William Duggan | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Forget Suze Orman. Time, Not Money, Is Your Most Precious Resource. Spend It Wisely.

Content: Article | Author: Jennifer Aaker | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Most twenty-first-century notions of management presume that, in the end, people are pawns rather than players. Management still revolves largely around supervision, if-then rewards, and other forms of control. That’s true even of the kinder, gentler Motivation 2.1 approach that whispers sweetly about things like empowerment and flexibility. Flexibility simply widens the fences and occasionally opens the gates. It is little more than control in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Daniel Pink | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Social Scientist John Jost studies the beliefs and ideologies that justify our status in the world, whether it be high or low. In recent research, Jost has merged two longstanding but contradictory theories about how disadvantaged minorities view themselves. A concept Jost calls “attitudinal ambivalence” explains why members of low-status groups, such as African Americans or women, can be both proud and ashamed of who … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Jost | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Organizational Behavior

What differentiates a thriving life from one spent suffering?

Content: Article | Authors: James K. Harter, Tom Rath | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Any genuine shift in strategy implies a change in emphasis; it might involve different customers or markets, new technologies or business processes, unfamiliar leadership styles or management techniques. This requires that leaders learn new skills and master new approaches—a big challenge in itself. Even more problematic, a new strategy undermines the organization’s political profile in very tangible ways. It alters priorities, resource allocations, and reporting … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Mark Nadler | Source: Oliver Wyman | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

The behavioral economist explains why executives need to recognize—and embrace—the irrational forces that affect themselves and their employees.

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Dan Ariely | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

In the early 1900s, a thoughtful organizational thinker named Mary Parker Follett called out the critical difference between compromise and integration. A team that compromises has settled for the lowest common denominator: a solution, no matter how incomplete, to which all can easily agree, just to move things forward. Compromised solutions made in this way are more likely to break down.

A team that integrates, by … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jon R. Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork

A real team, in my view, is something very specific. It differs from the more common “single-leader unit” in three important ways. First, all members of a real team have an equal level of emotional commitment to the team’s purpose and goals. Second, the leadership role shifts easily among the members based on the skills and experience they have and the challenges of the moment, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jon R. Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Teamwork

A partnership changes every time counterparts communicate — or fail to do so.

Content: Article | Authors: Gale Muller, Rodd Wagner | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Everyone knows that on average women earn less than men for the same work. Social psychological research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s suggested that women even pay themselves less than men pay themselves. But that was then, right? John Jost decided to see if women’s attitudes about their worth had changed since the advent of feminism. His research, which measures the “depressed-entitlement effect” among … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: John Jost | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Women in Business

Mother Nature has spent millennia perfecting its communication systems. How can large complex organizations draw on these lessons?

Content: Article | Authors: Paul Jackson, Vincent-Wayne Mitchell | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Most brain activities don’t systematically distinguish between an activity and the avoidance of that activity. When someone repeatedly thinks, “I should not break this rule,” they are activating and strengthening neural patterns related to breaking the rule.

Therefore, to engender change among people in an organization, it’s important to keep attention focused on the desired end state, not on avoiding problems. This goal-directed positive reinforcement must … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Doug Lennick, Jeffrey Schwartz, Pablo Gaito | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

People may have only limited free will, but they have powerful “free won’t.” In organizations, when a strong impulse reflects “the way we do things around here,” there is always the option to veto the action, especially if people have practiced this ability.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Doug Lennick, Jeffrey Schwartz, Pablo Gaito | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

A simple rule of thumb is that a team of specialists or generalists doesn’t really work, especially with messy, creative problems. You really need a mixture of specialists who see one part of the problem with a whole lot of depth and a generalist who can help integrate the views of the individual specialists.

Content: Quotation | Author: Brian Uzzi | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Teamwork