167 Posts found for Source: Across the Board (ATB)

An expert’s job is to be right — to solve the client’s problems through the application of technical and professional skill. The advisor behaves differently. Rather than being in the right, the advisor’s job is to be helpful, providing guidance, input, and counseling to the client’s own thought and decision-making processes. The client retains control and responsibility at all times; the advisor’s role is subordinate … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Maister | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Consulting / Analytical Tools, Decision Making, Expertise

When I talk about S&M, I’m talking about seduction and manipulation. The most successful people in business, warfare, politics, and life itself are masters of the art of manipulation. But it’s the combination of the two that is important, because people who are manipulators are seen as selfish and in the wrong. Manipulate is a dirty word, but if you combine it with seduction — … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Nina DiSesa | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior, Power / Authority

For people in any position of authority the ability to say no is the most important skill there is. . . . No, you can’t have a pay rise. No, you can’t be promoted. No, you can’t travel club class. . . . An illogical love of Yes is the basis for all modern management thought. The ideal modern manager is meant to be enabling, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Lucy Kellaway | Sources: Across the Board (ATB), Financial Times | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Has positive thinking gone too far in corporate America? That may sound like a bizarre question: Optimism is widely seen as a virtue of American culture and key to success in business. Cultural norms and beliefs about good business practice increasingly stress looking at the sunny side and de-emphasizing the problematic.

But such overly positive thinking is difficult to reconcile with the need to make realistic, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Susan Webber | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The greatest obstacle to making decisions regarding money is the money itself.

Content: Article | Author: James Krohe Jr. | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Economics, Management

Using your authority to beat people down in your company may help you in the short term, but it isn’t good for morale. Most savvy, sophisticated executives are natural wooers because they understand that one of the most important things to people is their self-esteem, and it’s counterproductive to force people to go along with your idea rather than convince them of its merits. When … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Persuasion, Power / Authority

The lesson of nearly thirty years of research into the psychology of economic decision-making is that the ways we feel about money — having it, making it, losing it — seldom add up. As hundreds of experiments since the 1970s have confirmed, we are haunted by the prospect of loss. Our perceptions are easily skewed according to how a problem is presented. We turn blind … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Economics, Personality / Behavior

A board member primarily focuses on four things. First, strategy. Long-term strategy and execution are paramount. You need to have an aggressive goal and a plan on how to reach that. The second thing is performance management — how you are doing against the goals and what resources you need to devote toward that. How do you achieve the objectives? The third is the talent … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Corporate Governance

Put together a group of strong-minded people, arrange for them to meet six times a year, have no performance targets for them, and recruit a number of outsiders with no knowledge of the industry or the company into the group. Would they function as a team? We doubt it. Yet this is how we organize corporate boards. They are thrown together half a dozen times … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Corporate Governance

Despite best intentions and anti-discrimination programs, we still hire people just like us.

Content: Article | Author: Susan Webber | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

The economy has produced great benefits for consumers and investors in the last thirty years: The Dow Jones has gone from 600 in 1975 to 13,000 today; we have countless TV channels; automakers are producing much better cars; we have many more choices for every kind of product, at lower prices. Capitalism has won. There’s no longer a contest between capitalism and communism.

But inequality is … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

We have many young people now getting their MBAs and looking toward a life in which they can do well and do good, working for a corporation that is socially responsible. I think they’re fooling themselves. I would rather those young people, if they’re genuinely concerned about the state of the planet, roll up their sleeves and get involved in either politics or some organization … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

I don’t think people are cognizant at all [of the tradeoffs they’re making]. Where do we suppose the great deals come from? They come from companies that are buying abroad, pushing down real wages, fighting unions, rewarding any executive ruthless enough to slash costs, doing all sorts of things to get the best deals for consumers and investors. The citizen side of our brains might … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

Want to make your meetings more productive? You may learn a thing or two from this gathering of warring gangs.

Content: Article | Author: John Wareham | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Bill George, like many critics, thinks that many of today’s leaders have failed us. But he has gone beyond criticism to develop a way of thinking about leadership-and what it means to be a leader today-that may be in tune with our times and the generation of leaders to come.

Editor’s Note: I’m not personally a big fan of the whole authentic leadership concept pushed … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: A.J. Vogl | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Management

The key to changing minds is to introduce conflicting ideas and create “constructive confusion.” Only after confusion has been attained can clarity appear.

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Change Management, Persuasion

The best meetings have two leaders, advocates and synthesists. Advocates openly press for a particular point of view. Synthesists explore all points of view and keep the discussion calm, logical, and moving forward. Only schizophrenics can hope to play both roles simultaneously. So if you’re one of those Alphas who feels compelled to fight openly for your views, let someone else run the meeting. The … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Sandy Weill’s fabled dealmaking changed the face of the financial-services industry. Now he’s looking back at the world he left behind and making new plans.

Content: Thought Leader | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Management | Industry: Finance / Banking

Jack Coffee asks why auditors, attorneys, securities analysts, investment bankers, and government regulators have failed to keep corporations on the straight and narrow.

Content: Article | Author: A.J. Vogl | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Corporate Governance

We’ve studied older workers to death. How come we know so little about them?

Content: Article | Author: Mary Young | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Demographics, Human Resources