91 Posts found for Source: Context Magazine

No, matrix management does not work, but do you have a choice? I hate matrix management. There is an old proverb of Roman law that says, The slave who has three masters is a free man. Matrix management means that nobody is accountable for anything. I happen to believe in accountability. But what choice do you have?

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Organizational Behavior

All you can do in your company—and you’d better do it—is find out the strengths of the people who work for you and place them where their strengths can produce results, so that there is satisfaction. At present, we are focused on the weaknesses of people. When I talk to my clients about Joe, they say Joe cannot do this and Joe cannot do that. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

The pioneer is convinced that it knows what market a new thing is designed for. But this rarely is the market that subsequently picks up the product.

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Entrepreneurship

People ask me, Where did your leadership training come from? I am sometimes reluctant to admit that everything I did in 35 years in the service I learned as a brand new second lieutenant.

I was taught to think about mission and people.

Mission. What are you trying to accomplish? Don’t do anything until you know what the mission is. Drilled into our hearts and into our … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Colin Powell | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Leadership

The challenge for me was to have informal contacts and to get information from outside the organization that had been set up to provide me information. I did that beginning at 6:30 every morning, when I’d hit my office having read all the newspapers. I would get the CIA to come in for 20 minutes with no other staff members present and tell me what … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Colin Powell | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Knowledge, Leadership

Every industry is going to have an operating system. The question is: Who gets to be Microsoft?

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Strategy

The success stories I am familiar with have involved treating behavioral change as a marketing campaign. They shook the dust off their consumer marketing textbooks and used the classic techniques of brand management and communication and incentives to promote the hell out of the change to the people inside the organization.

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Socrates says that writing forces us to follow an argument rather than to participate in it, and I think you see that all the time when the professor is giving a lecture. Students are writing their notes, trying to follow the argument, and abandon any hope of participating in it.

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Communication, Education

This article takes a look at Geoffrey Moore’s famous fault line, chasm and tornado, parts of his four stages of market development.

Content: Article | Author: Geoffrey A. Moore | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Look, I’ve lived a very long life, and I’ve seen a lot of stupidity. But very little of it beats the stupidity with which we have been downsizing…Don’t be surprised that morale is very low. The contempt for top management is dreadful. And the present generation of management is not going to regain the trust of their people. It is our greatest disadvantage in this … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Leadership, Management

If elite sports teams practice their teamwork, why don’t businesses? They must.

Content: Article | Authors: Valerio Pascotto, W. Timothy Gallwey | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

As companies try to build online communities, they often make seven poisonous mistakes.

Content: Article | Author: Alan Warms | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Why we should care who gets the merchandising deal from a movie or the song tie-in on a variety show.

“We are in the midst of a cultural war over copyright, in which the salvos show the complete disconnect between the colliding copyright regimes of statute and practicality, law and life.”

Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Zittrain | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Legal

The rhythms of existence require a time of reflection as well as of toil.

Content: Article | Author: David Whyte | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Career, Personal Development

Former U.S. Army Gneral and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, currently Secretary of State of the U.S.

Content: Thought Leader | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Management | Industry: Government

If you were to ask what the two main challenges are that we face, technology is not going to help you with either.

One is to increase the dismal productivity of the new labor force-knowledge workers and service workers. In blue-collar work, the question is how the job is done. But in knowledge work, the question is what should be done. Managements haven’t asked that question … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Management, Trends / Analysis

Very few of us, myself included, know the customer. One reason is that all of us believe, and must believe, that the product and the service we produce is important. But 99.9% of your customers couldn’t care less about your product or service. You are not that important in their universe. And that’s almost impossible to accept.

The second reason is that you amass an enormous … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

Corporations typically run on annual budget cycles, but new ventures can’t. They need money when they need money-typically, a commitment of funding should come every few months. Those commitments should come only after the venture has reached clearly defined milestones. Poker players will tell you that, in seven-card stud, most of the money is lost on the fourth and fifth cards, as players indulge the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Finance

Detailed customer profiles aren’t enough. Companies must make their marketing messages more timely.

Content: Article | Authors: John Erik Garr, John Sviokla, Matthew Chittle | Source: Context Magazine | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

Two experts debate whether industry self-regulation will preserve personal privacy.

Content: Article | Authors: Adam Penenberg, John Kamp | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Legal