Bruce Nixon

Westerners divide things into parts, often opposites, rather than seeing the whole. That has been the basis of scientific method and it has led to amazing discoveries. However for the complex problems we face today, I believe we need to see the whole interconnected system and diagnose the underlying issues. We seem to have difficulty seeing the whole system and tend to chop things up … [ Read more ]

Michael Regester

The essence of a good reputation is not in trying to conjure up a good story to hide substandard performance, but in sensitizing management to the need to adjust performance so the deeds speak for themselves. It boils down to deeds versus declarations. A record of responsible deeds is the organization’s insurance policy when and if something goes wrong.

Stephen H. Baum

Quick decisions based on wrong assumptions lead to quick trouble. Quick decisions based on a faulty analogy do the same. “Ready, fire, aim” is a prescription for poor marksmanship.

Richard Neustadt asks, “are you facing a problem that can be solved or a condition that must be treated?” Mistaking one or the other can be painful.

Are you using a flawed analogy? Assumptions that are not true? … [ Read more ]

Spotlight on Edward de Bono

In this issue of Spotlight, Edward de Bono talks to editor Sarah Powell about the development, application and impact of his ideas about thinking and creativity.

Spotlight on Henri-Claude de Bettignies

In this issue of Spotlight, Professor Henri-Claude de Bettignies speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the development of China as a world power and the opportunities and challenges this offers to western businesses.

Emmanuel Gobillot

In this issue of Spotlight, Emmanuel Gobillot speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the need for ‘connected’ leaders who engage with employees in relationships based on trust and meaningful dialogue.

Timothy Berners-lee

In this issue of Spotlight, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, talks to editor Sarah Powell about the development and potential power of the Semantic Web.

Henri-Claude de Bettignies

We tend to underestimate the cultural dimension of managerial processes, techniques and tools…Just because something is best practice in one country does not make it necessarily transferable to another. This can be impossible when such practice is the product of the western culture, values and relationships embedded within an organization, and is significantly different from those emerging in China. Best practice and the management techniques … [ Read more ]

Pierre Yves (P Y) Gerbeau

I could spend days talking about management style. But every business is different – there is not a recipe or a Drucker book in which you can learn about management. Doing an MBA you will learn about strategy, finance, marketing…but you will never learn about management. You will only learn about management by doing it.

Peter Cappelli

I believe forced ranking systems are pretty ham-fisted; there is a whole series of perverse outcomes associated with them. They work in the sense that they force identification of performance differences. The question is: what do you do with the rankings? This is where it becomes much more contentious. I consider that imposing real consequences on people because of such rankings … [ Read more ]

Spotlight on Dick Grote

In this issue of Spotlight, Dick Grote speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the difference between standard performance appraisal and ‘forced ranking’ and the reasons why forced ranking is so contentious.

Michael Roberto

In many of the management teams I’ve studied, an unwillingness to disagree has proved a problem. This seems to be the general pattern. It’s more difficult to draw people out than to control. Within a team there is a sort of natural policing that goes on which means excessive combativeness usually isn’t tolerated. On the other hand there are no sanctions … [ Read more ]

Spotlight on Nirmalya Kumar

An interview with Professor Nirmalya Kumar of London Business School, focusing on the need for marketers to assume the role of change agents, developing strategic thinking and cross-functional skills. Discusses the decline of marketing as an engine for growth, and the rationale underpinning continuous incremental innovation as opposed to radical market-driving innovation. Reports on the means of benefiting simultaneously from the efficiencies of global … [ Read more ]

Dick Grote

There are two questions that I believe every single person in any organization wants answered: first, what do you expect of me, and second, how am I doing at meeting your expectations?

Dick Grote

The mistake organizations frequently make is to use training and development as a damage control strategy to shore up the weaknesses of those who are not doing well. That is a mistake. It’s a bad use of corporate assets. Training and development need to be directed towards the best performers, i.e. to polish diamonds not polish coal.

Ross Campbell

Crisis management is only as strong as its most distant parts. The best crisis management plans have a consistent process across all an organization’s sites. A crisis manager from head office should be able to walk onto any site in that organization and play a part of the crisis response team anywhere; similarly, a member of the most distant site of that organization should be … [ Read more ]

Nirmalya Kumar

Marketers need to prove to corporate leaders and others in their organizations that they are capable of strategic rather than tactical thinking, that they are capable of being bottom-line oriented, that they do consider returns on the investment that they make in marketing, and that they understand the cross-functional implications of the marketing initiatives that they recommend, i.e. the impact on manufacturing, on the supply … [ Read more ]

Spotlight on Sam Rovit

Sam Rovit, a partner in the Chicago office of Bain & Company and head of Bain’s Global Mergers & Acquisitions Practice, speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the paradox of the need for M&A in corporate growth and the high failure rate of such operations.

Spotlight on Nigel Nicholson

Nigel Nicholson speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the implications of evolutionary psychology for business.

Nigel Nicholson

Like any other discipline evolutionary psychology gives us insight – a very profound insight. However, it doesn’t answer the question about what we do with that insight – that’s the area of choice. Evolutionary psychology says that our choices are subject to forces and we need to be aware of this. Frequently we give in to these forces. We could argue, for example, that huge … [ Read more ]