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Category Archives: Strategy

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Renewing the American Republic: The Ecodynamics of Donald Trump Part II

In the early hours of Wednesday November 9 2016 I was as bemused as everyone else. Donald Trump had won the presidential election and would be the 45th President of the United States. The last polls I saw had given … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, capitalism, change, community, complex systems, democracy, Donald Trump, ecocycle, ecological perspective, Hillary Clinton, Lawrence Lessig, lobbyists, Mancur Olson, narrative, NRA, power trap | Comments Off on Renewing the American Republic: The Ecodynamics of Donald Trump Part II

Wells Fargo: Culture Eats Strategy (again) and (this time) the CEO

Over the decades organizational culture has devoured hundreds, if not thousands of strategies. One of the most recent examples is the case of Wells Fargo, where culture not only ate a long-standing, apparently successful strategy but last week also consumed … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged acquisitions, banking, Carrie Tolstedt, Cartesian mindset, cross-selling, culture, ethical code, ethics, Goldman Sachs, Jack Welch, John Stumpf, mega-bank, mergers, muppets, Norwest Corporation, outcomes, performance, process, scale, strategy, Timothy Sloan, Wachovia, wells fargo | Comments Off on Wells Fargo: Culture Eats Strategy (again) and (this time) the CEO

Claiming Our Humanity in a Digital Age: Big Questions in Vienna

The theme of the 2015 Drucker Forum that ended in Vienna two weeks ago was “Claiming Our Humanity: Managing in a Digital Age”. Nearly 500 management academics, business people and management consultants from all over the world attended the two-day … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Adam Smith, All Blacks, augmentation, automation, change, cult of efficiency, digital, Drucker Forum, European Enlightenment, haka, humanity, ideology of reason, Julia Kirby, Kevin Roberts, Peter Drucker, post-rational, Robin Chase, Saatchi & Saatchi, sociology of virtue, Super-VUCA, Tom Davenport | Comments Off on Claiming Our Humanity in a Digital Age: Big Questions in Vienna

The VW Debacle: How Large Successful Organizations and Institutions Can Become “Bad Barrels” And What To Do About It

The outlines of Volkswagen’s comprehensive program to defeat national auto emissions laws are becoming clearer. According to the New York Times the company began installing software designed to cheat on emissions test in 2008, when they realized that their new … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Alex Gorsky, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Aristotle, change, complex systems, context, creativity, crisis, destruction, diesel emissions, ecological perspective, efficient cause, General Motors, gun control, hip joints, ignition locks, J&J, Johnson & Johnson, material cause, means and ends, Risperdal, shareholder value, Volkswagen debacle, Winterkorn | 1 Comment

Management by Machine: MBO as Manipulation?

Recently Adrian Wooldridge, the Schumpeter columnist for The Economist, reviewed the introduction by BetterWorks, a Silicon Valley startup, of “goal science” to the workplace. The New York Times reviewed the same company on Monday. The company “makes office software that blends … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Adrian Wooldridge, auftragstaktik, befehlstaktik, BetterWorks, change, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, John Doerr, management by objectives, means and ends, Peter Drucker, Prussian Army, SMART, The Economist | Comments Off on Management by Machine: MBO as Manipulation?

The Wreck of The New Republic – How Not to Run a Turnaround

The economist Joseph Schumpeter famously argued that the central feature of capitalism was “creative destruction”. Last month the destructive aspects were on full view in the wreck of the 100-year-old magazine The New Republic (TNR). In the first week of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Andrew Sullivan, Canwest, Charybdis, Chris Hughes, commoditization, David Brooks, Dilbert, Frank Foer, Guy Vidra, incubator, inequality, Leon Wieseltier, mission, power laws, Progressive Movement, Scott Adams, Scylla, Sean Eldridge, short-termism, The New Republic, TNR, tradition, turnaround, wartime CEO | Comments Off on The Wreck of The New Republic – How Not to Run a Turnaround

Strategy as the Creation of Power: The Lion versus the Fox

This week my blog consists of the review I wrote for Strategy+Business of Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy – a History: Lawrence Freedman defines strategy as the central political art. “It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Strategy | Tagged Albion Small, annihilation, attrition, Clausewitz, cunning, David, fox, Goliath, Greeks, improvisation, Kahneman, Lawrence Freedman, lion, Machiavelli, narrative, Odysseus, performance, Romans, script, strategy, strength, Trojan Horse | Comments Off on Strategy as the Creation of Power: The Lion versus the Fox

A Theory and a Hammer: Managing With Incentives (Part II)

I spent the past week teaching a leadership class at the Kenneth Levene Graduate School of Business at the University of Regina. At the same time my HBR blog “Is Management Due For a Renaissance” has been attracting continuing comment … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Alfie Kohn, change, complex systems, context, creativity, Jack Welch, means and ends, Peter Drucker, purpose, Sears Roebuck, Steve Denning, telos | Comments Off on A Theory and a Hammer: Managing With Incentives (Part II)

A Theory and a Hammer: Managing with Incentives (Part I)

The wait time scandal, recently revealed in the Veterans Affairs Hospital (VAH) network in the U.S., is another indication of how difficult it can be to change large-scale, complex organizations. The VAH system has had a long roller-coaster history. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged incentives, scandal, VAH, Veterans Affairs, wait time | Comments Off on A Theory and a Hammer: Managing with Incentives (Part I)

Exploring The Ecology of Leadership: the Power of Analogical Thinking

I spent the past week in California working with a senior management team from a large global corporation as part of their extensive executive development program. This was my third time with the same organization and I had worked hard … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abduction, alignment, analogical thinking, analogy, change, choice, commitment, complex systems, creativity, crisis, direction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, executive development, image, leadership culture, Leadership Metaphor Explorer, metaphor, narrative, The New Ecology of Leadership, Visual Explorer, wicked systems | Comments Off on Exploring The Ecology of Leadership: the Power of Analogical Thinking ← Older posts Newer posts →