417 Posts found for Source: Ivey Business Journal

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Leaders are increasingly finding themselves in situations where they need help from subordinates, and in which subordinates are asking for help in areas where leaders are not experts. To manage either situation effectively, a leader will have to develop a degree of humility and specific process skills. Readers will learn how to achieve those difficult goals in this article by the dean of organizational behavior. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Edgar H. Schein | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

The metaphor of social theater comes into play in that the leader has a choice of what role to play once he or she is thrust into a helping situation. There are three possible roles: 1) The leader can be an “expert” who provides information, actually does the job for the subordinate, or in other ways displays superior knowledge or skill; 2) The leader can … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Edgar H. Schein | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

In the only scientifically valid study of the motivations of a cross-section of the entire U.S. workforce, researchers unveiled the secret of why leaders…have been able to create working conditions that effectively tap into the deep wellspring of worker motivation. This 2002 survey of 3,000 workers, undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau, found that there are two main sources of employee motivation, loyalty, commitment, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: James O’Toole | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Ethics, Management, Motivation

Because the prescriptions of most success studies lack an empirical foundation, they should not be treated as how-to manuals, but as a source of inspiration and fuel for introspection. In short, their value is not what you read in them, but what you read into them.

How did these researchers create such compelling narratives, then, if their samples are suspect? The human mind being what it … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Andrew D. Henderson, Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Success / Failure

From Built to Last to Good to Great and now to Why the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins has established himself as the leading management thinker of our time. The former Stanford University Business School professor turned mega-selling author and avid rock climber is the driven researcher and thinker whom many leading companies look to for advice on how to grow, how to improve their … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Jim Collins, Stephen Bernhut | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Management, People

Are all the companies that supposedly go from good to great really that great after all? Or, are they merely one of a pack of pretty average performers? As these authors state, those really great companies may only be putatively great, successful but only in a middling sort of way. The authors studied the popular literature on “great” performing companies and came to their own, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew D. Henderson, Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Best Practices

Identifying and assessing growth options are complex, critical processes. Even more critical, and intricate, is the measurement of risk associated with each option. These authors provide a robust framework that will enable managers and their firms to choose those growth options that have the best chance of succeeding.

Content: Article | Authors: Bill Liabotis, Donald Baer | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Managers want to have their instincts validated before they act, such as waiting until all the data have been gathered before they launch a product. But relying on the tried and true doesn’t always serve managers well, especially when it comes to organic growth. The question of “Will it fly?” can be answered only by letting it fly – by launching the particular product and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bob Rosen, Jeanne Liedtka, Rob Wiltbank | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Organizational Behavior

The “vision thing” is still with us, but while leaders insist in having a compelling vision, the fact is that many – both the leaders and the visions – leave people standing still, unmoved. A leader who engages stakeholders when developing a vision will, in the end, articulate one that resonates strongly and impels people to act.

Content: Article | Author: Jeffrey Gandz | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

Imagine if a CEO, when reading an analyst’s report, focused more on the analyst’s insights and analysis of the particular company’s strategy that on the analyst’s buy or sell recommendation. Imagine further that the CEO applied one or more of those insights to his or her own company. Imagine, then, the CEO’s reaction when the application of something in that analyst’s report increases his or … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Anne-Marie Fink | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Management

Success is constantly a journey. You’re always trying to better understand the sources of your success and the things that could imperil you. If you actually think that you have all those answers, you stop asking the questions. Well, what happens if, in fact, you were wrong about part of it? And then things start to go awry because you’ve lost that inquisitiveness, the will … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jim Collins | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Success / Failure

What has made the biggest impression on me in terms of an approach to any kind of organized performance, an approach to life that you just see it across, no matter what lens you put on, you see it? It’s this idea of the primacy of “Who” over “What.” We see it in the research that we’re doing on tumultuous environments. Because if you can’t … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jim Collins | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Leadership, Management

You have a great enterprise that has a very strong set of values that’s married to a very insightful strategy. That is then translated into a set of disciplined decisions, mechanisms, cultural practices and a variety of other things that really bring the strategy to life so that you can make good on it. And when you look at that chain, the great danger comes … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jim Collins | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Management, Strategy, Success / Failure

Studying even the right tail of a distribution doesn’t tell you how to break free of the distribution. In short, if you want to use inferential methods to get outside the box, you have to look at someone who is outside the box!

To see the importance of this step in the analysis, ask yourself this question: If two firms in the same industry had differences … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Andrew D. Henderson, Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Statistics

Downsizing has a negative effect on corporate memory and employee morale, disrupts social networks, causes a loss of knowledge, and disrupts learning networks. As a result, downsizing risks handicapping and damaging the learning capacity of organizations. Further, given that downsizing is often associated with cutting costs, downsizing firms may provide less training for their employees, recruit less externally, and reduce the research and development budget. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Henry Hornstein | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

There are two things to say about downsizing: It seldom works and is often done incorrectly.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

When does having too many brands and too many variations of those brands create a perilous situation? The answer is that when you are an American icon, once thought too big to fail, and that never ever thought it should modify, let alone re-consider trimming, its portfolio of offerings. On the verge, General Motors illustrates why building an offering for every market segment may make … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Roger More | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Industry Specific | Industry: Automotive | Company: General Motors

When this regular Ivey Business Journal contributor recommends a certain book, executives can be assured that they will derive value from the book. Even if it is a black swan.

Content: Article | Author: John McCallum | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Management, Risk Management, Statistics

As a recently released federal task force report emphasized, Canadian companies need to become more competitive. But “competitive” these days is practically synonymous with “innovative.” The issue is a “But” because there is a dearth of knowledge, especially in Canada, on how companies around the world innovate. These authors researched companies around the world, and their findings, described in this article, will help Canadian companies … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Marcel Côté, Roger Miller | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Innovation