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Blog

Category Archives: General

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Don’t Throw the Past Away

The late Kenneth Boulding, environmental advisor to JFK and one of my favourite economists, once said that “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad – or an economist.” I used … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged ancestor, ecocycle, Erik Erikson, generation gap, identity, Kamloops, Kenneth Boulding, narrative, Northrop Frye, psychosocial development, retirement, Rotary, sustainability, William Blake | Comments Off on Don’t Throw the Past Away

The Nature of Uncertainty: Hunting Black Swans

This past week I gave the opening keynote at the 2014 Conference Board meeting on Enterprise Risk Management. It gave me an opportunity to bring an ecological perspective to risk and uncertainty as well as allowing me to promote The … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged algorithm, black swans, Cohen and Gooch, Confucius, COSO, Enterprise Risk Management, George Box, Guntram Werther, Jung, Kant, knowledge, Michael Mauboussin, models, Nassim Taleb, pattern, phronesis, risk, syncretic thinking, T-shaped, uncertainty, understanding | Comments Off on The Nature of Uncertainty: Hunting Black Swans

Exploring Leadership Using Metaphors

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 on Exploring Leadership Using Metaphors

Learning: The Power of Simulations

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 on Learning: The Power of Simulations

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

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

The Spring Campaign

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 on The Spring Campaign

Watch Your Language! Why Metaphors Matter in Management

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

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

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

“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

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 on The “3Rs” of Management Part II: Rationality and Power ← Older posts Newer posts →