Tag Archives: management

True But Useless: Why So Much Management Advice Sucks (and what to do about it).

Why does so much management advice sound reasonable but turn out to be of little value? Most readers will know what I mean. Take the following guidance on how companies can ‘accelerate their agile transformation’: Create a C-suite with an … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged abstraction, Alfred North Whitehead, altruism, Aristotle, BSC, budgets, cause-and-effect, complex adaptive systems, Daniel Boorstin, experience, gardeners, gemba, growing people, KPI, Lao-Tzu, management, Mary Parker Follett, MBO, means and ends, measurement, mindset, RONA, selfishness, Stanley McChrystal, Tao Te Ching, truisms | Comments Off on True But Useless: Why So Much Management Advice Sucks (and what to do about it).

Why Business Books Still Speak Volumes

It’s easy to be critical of business books. What had been a dull cottage industry until the publication of Tom Peters; and Bob Waterman’s In Search of Excellence (1982) became an exuberant enterprise that churns out a vast number of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged business books, management, meaning, narrative | Comments Off on Why Business Books Still Speak Volumes

Can Management Advance in This Way? A Question from the Global Drucker Forum 2014

The 6th Global Drucker Forum ended on November 14 with a series of comments and calls to action from the major speakers involved. The last of these was HBS professor Clay Christensen, who called for more cooperation and harmonizing of … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Christensen, Drucker Forum, Frank Knight, Herbert Simon, Jeb Bush, management, philosophy, positivism, post-rational, Steve Denning, uncertainty | Comments Off on Can Management Advance in This Way? A Question from the Global Drucker Forum 2014

HBR Blog: The Mongrel Discipline of Management

A few days ago this blog of mine got published on the HBR Blog Network where it is attracting a good deal of comment. You can read it in situ as well as the comments here (as well as see the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged change, discipline, ecological rationality, logic, management, means and ends, mongrel, participant, rationality, spectator | 1 Comment

The Presidential Election: America In a Trap

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley and it is difficult to imagine how disruptive Superstorm Sandy must have been to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He was effectively prevented from campaigning and forced to watch his … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged 1984, Barack Obama, Big Brother, change, china, Chris Christy, Chrysler, community, dependency corruption, ecocycle, ecological perspective, George Orwell, Great Recession, Jeep, Jeremiah Wright, John McCain, Lawrence Lessig, leadership, management, Mitt Romney, Mormon, narrative, Ohio, power, regulation, social trap, special interests, Superstorm Sandy, sweet zone, tax code, winner-take-all | 1 Comment