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Category Archives: General

Exploring Leadership Using Metaphors

Posted on April 1, 2014 by David

Last week I spent a day-and-a-half with a group of senior managers from a large global company discussing leadership. The company faces all the challenges one might expect it to face – globalization, digitization, cross-cultural difficulties and so on in … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged budget, CCL, Chuck Palus, David Horth, ecological perspective, financial forecasting, Leadership Metaphor Explorer, mental model, metaphor, performance management, The New Ecology of Leadership, Visual Explorer, VUCA | Comments Off

Learning: The Power of Simulations

Posted on March 25, 2014 by David

Last week I facilitated a day-long course on the “Fundamentals of Finance for Decision Making” as part of the DeGroote Executive Education program. I was using the Apples & Oranges simulation from the Swedish company, Celemi. I say “facilitated”, rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Alfred North Whitehead, Apples & Oranges, Celemi, Center for Creative Leadership, DeGroote, ecocycle, EVA, Hartwick College, Klas Mellander, learning, simulations, teaching | Comments Off

The Great Transformation – Getting a Handle on Wicked Problems at the 2014 Global Drucker Forum

Posted on March 18, 2014 by David

The theme for the 6th Global Peter Drucker Forum to be held in Vienna November 13-14 is “The Great Transformation – Managing Our Way to Prosperity”. The launch event took place in that city last week. Over 120 people gathered … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Bretton Woods, bubbles, Carlota Perez, change, deployment, ecological perspective, financial capital, gilded age, Global Peter Drucker Forum 2014, golden age, Great Recession, inflection point, installation, probe-sense-respond, productive capital, Schumpeter, techno-economic paradigm, technological revolution, turning point | Comments Off

The Spring Campaign

Posted on March 11, 2014 by David

Last Sunday we put our clocks forward in Canada to reflect the return of the sun to the Northern Hemisphere and the possibility that winter might come to an end and give way to spring. It cannot come soon enough; … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Apples & Oranges, Celemi, Center for Creative Leadership, Conference Board, De Groote, Enterprise Risk Management, finance, ice, Kamloops, Leadership Metaphor Explorer, Rotary, San Diego, spring, Thompson Rivers University, United Jewish Appeal, Visual Explorer, winter | Comments Off

Watch Your Language! Why Metaphors Matter in Management

Posted on February 18, 2014 by David

It’s another launch of another strategic plan to the company’s senior and middle managers and the CEO is rattling on about “roadmaps” and “blueprints” that will generate “traction” in the market and “buy-in” from the employees. The employees are watching … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Aristotle, blueprint, buy-in, change, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, Gareth Morgan, George Lakoff, Gibson Burrell, Mark Johnson, metaphor, roadmap, Thomas Kuhn, top-down | 1 Comment

Skating To Where the Puck Is Going To Be: CVS Decides to Stop Selling Cigarettes

Posted on February 11, 2014 by David

“Cigarettes have no place in an environment where healthcare is being delivered.” With these words, Larry Merlo, the CEO of CVS, the US second-largest drugstore chain, announced that they would be the first such chain to discontinue the sale of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged American healthcare, business model, change, Clayton Christensen, community, diagnostics, disruption, drugstore chain, ecological perspective, ecosystem, facilitated network, general hospital, hernia, Innovator's Prescription, Jason Hwang, Jerome Grossman, lukemia, Minute Clinic, pharmacy, Roman Catholic Church, Shouldice Clinic, solution shop, subsidiarity, value-added process, Wayne Gretsky | Comments Off

“Ethical Capitalism – Worth a Try?” – Confusion at Davos about What “It” Is

Posted on February 4, 2014 by David

“Ethical Capitalism – Worth a Try?” was the rather timid title of one of the open forum sessions at the recently concluded World Economic Forum at Davos. It was chaired by Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Economics editor for The Economist, … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Davos, ethical capitalism, Henry Schein, Ignazio Visco, Jasmine Whitbread, KPI, Martin Sorrell, Max Weber, Muhammad Yunus, Quakers, Stan Bergman, wertrationale, World Economic Forum, WPP, Zanny Minton Beddoes, zweckrationale | 2 Comments

The “3Rs” of Management Part II: Rationality and Power

Posted on January 28, 2014 by David

Walter Bagehot once wrote that “The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards”. Following on my blog from last week, I think that this is a fair description of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged agency theory, Bent Flyvbjerg, Bertrand Russel, Bertrand Russell, domination, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, exploitation, Harold Leavitt, hunter-gatherer, innovation, investor capitalism, Machiavelli, means and ends, Nietzsche, power, Rakesh Khurana, Rationality and Power, rationalization, Realpolitik, Realrationalitat, shareholder value model, Walter Bagehot | Comments Off

The 3 “Rs” of Management: Rigour, Relevance and Rationality

Posted on January 21, 2014 by David

The debate between rigour and relevance continues in management education, usually spurred by management professors’ concerns that practitioners are paying little attention to their research. The history of the problem is now familiar: in the first half of the 20th … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Bloom, Carnegie Corporation, constructivist, ecological rationality, engineering, Ford Foundation, Hayek, Kahneman, Martin Wooldridge, Michael Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed, rationality, relevance, Richard Rorty, rigour, rules, Schumpeter, System 1, System 2, The Economist, Van Reenen, Vernon Smith | Comments Off

Why Isn’t ‘Servant Leadership’ More Prevalent?

Posted on January 14, 2014 by David

This was the question posed recently on the Wisdom Research Network of the University of Chicago by James L. Heskett, Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University. He continued: “Servant leadership is an age-old … Continue reading →