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Category Archives: Change

Harvard Business School: The Reality Show?

Posted on September 17, 2013 by David

A fascinating front-page article in the New York Times reported on Harvard Business School’s attempt to achieve “gender equity”. HBS has had problems attracting and retaining female faculty. They comprise 22% of the faculty and the “pipeline” that leads to tenure … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Uncategorized | Tagged change, complex systems, context, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, gender equity, Harvard Business School, Jonathan Haidt, leadership, means and ends, New York Times, power, Rakesh Khurana, reality television, The New Ecology of Leadership | 1 Comment

Ecology versus Engineering: Why Reverse-Engineered Strategy Is No Better Than A Paint-by-Numbers Kit

Posted on September 3, 2013 by David

Recently there has been a lively discussion on LinkedIn about the similarities and differences between Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean strategy and Michael Porter’s strategic frameworks. What became clear in the debate is that the shared methodology behind both approaches … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged as if arguments, baseball, Blue Ocean, Cirque du Soleil, ecological perspective, implementation, Kim and Mauborgne, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Porter, rationalist delusion, reverse-engineered strategy, strategy | 2 Comments

Is Storytelling a Strategy or a Competency?

Posted on August 27, 2013 by David

Several weeks ago a blog appeared on the Harvard Business Review site entitled “Good Companies are Storytellers. Great Companies Are Storydoers.” In it its author, Ty Montague, outlined the characteristics of a storydoing company: 1. They have a story 2. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged competency, Cynthia Kurtz, deliberate practice, ecology, engineering, feedback, narrative, principles, story, story being, story doing, storytelling, strategy, Ty Montague | Comments Off

Addicted to Heroes: The Struggle to Improve America’s Schools

Posted on August 20, 2013 by David

I have been reading Diane Ravitch’s 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She was an appointee to the Department of Education by both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and initially a supporter of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Alan Bersin, American schools, Bill Clinton, community, complex systems, Diane Ravitch, ecocycle, ecological perspective, education system, factory, farmers, George Bush, heroes, Jim Womack, Joel Klein, lean, market, Michelle Rhee, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, rank-and-yank | 1 Comment

See-Feel-Smell-Change? Changing Behaviour Without Changing Minds Part II

Posted on August 13, 2013 by David

The essence of an ecological perspective on human behavior is that our minds are rational, but in an ecological way. That is we automatically take into account myriad aspects of our environment using all our senses and adjust our behavior … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Brunete, context, dog poo, dog poo fairy, ecological perspective, John Kotter, see-feel-change, Stockholm congestion charge | 1 Comment

The Counsel of Desirable Outcomes: Actions versus Achievements

Posted on August 6, 2013 by David

The bane of most, perhaps all, how-to books in management and business is what I call the “Counsel of Desirable Outcomes” – advice that sounds like action but really consists of achievements. Take a recent article in the Financial Times … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged achievement verbs, action verbs, ecological perspective, Gilbert Ryle, inputs, outputs, productivity growth, PwC, RONA | 1 Comment

T-shaped People: Deduction, Induction, Abduction and Systems Thinking

Posted on July 30, 2013 by David

IDEO, the design and innovation firm, prizes what they call “T-shaped” individuals. These are people with a deep expertise in one field or domain (the vertical stroke of the “T”) and some expertise across several, often dissimilar, domains (the horizontal … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abduction, analogical, analytical, bottom-up, Charles Sanders Peirce, complex systems, creativity, deduction, ecological perspective, IDEO, induction, innovation, leveraged action, systems, T-shaped, thinking, top-down | Comments Off

Is Conscious Capitalism A Conceptual Mess?

Posted on July 23, 2013 by David

Conscious Capitalism (CC) is featured prominently in the latest issue of the California Management Review (CMR) (Spring 2013, Vol. 55 No. 3.). In an article entitled “Conscious Capitalism Firms: Do They Behave as Their Proponents Say?”, Chong Wang, an Assistant … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Aristotle, Chong Wang, complex systems, conscious capitalism, ecological perspective, innovation, Karl Popper, Max Weber, narrative, Raj Sisodia, The New Ecology of Leadership, Whole Foods | 1 Comment

Changing Behaviour Without Changing Minds: the case of the Stockholm congestion charge

Posted on July 9, 2013 by David

Pioneering management writer, Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), was one of the first to make the argument that in practices like management we act our way into better ways of thinking rather more easily than the other way around. In 1924 … Continue reading →

Posted in Change | Tagged analyze-think-change, change, congestion charge, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, Jerry Sternin, John Kotter, Jonas Eliasson, London, Mary Parker Follett, Nudge, positive deviance, see-feel-change, Stockholm | 1 Comment

Lessons from Another Wildfire Tragedy: Nature Bats Last

Posted on July 2, 2013 by David

The tragic death over the weekend of nineteen firefighters fighting a fierce wildfire in defence of the town of Yarnell, Arizona is a reminder of the perils of building structures on top of processes. This week’s blog is based on … Continue reading →