Tag Archives: measurement

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).

Down With Descartes! If You Can’t Measure It You Had Better Manage It

  In Landmarks of Tomorrow (1959) Peter Drucker wrote “We still profess and we still teach the world-view of the past three hundred years… a Cartesian world-view.” It is a world-view redefined by Lord Kelvin (1824-1907): “… when you can … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Berlin, change, Descartes, Drucker, ecological perspective, Iraq, judgement, Kelvin, management principles, measurement, purpose, science, systems thinking, weight-loss | Comments Off on Down With Descartes! If You Can’t Measure It You Had Better Manage It

When Means Become Ends: Have our institutions lost their sense of purpose?

Forty years ago going to business school in the Western World, with a view to becoming a manager, was seen as an honorable endeavor. Back then we believed that management was a calling; a practice that had the potential to become … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged business schools, conflict of interest, ecological mental model, Friedrich Hayek, incentives, markets, means and ends, measurement, muppets, purpose, shareholder value model | Comments Off on When Means Become Ends: Have our institutions lost their sense of purpose?