Author Archives: David

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Is “Shareholder Value” a Myth or a Tool for Corporate Euthanasia?

I have been reading Lynn Stout’s The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations and The Public. It is a short, highly readable book, written with the objective of demolishing what Professor Stout calls the “shareholder value … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged bankruptcy, boards, corporate law, directors, Dodge v. Ford, ecological perspective, innovation, liquidation, Lynn Stout, Mitt Romney, principal-agent, purpose, shareholder value model | 2 Comments

Recipe for Ruin: Nothing Lasts Unless It Is Incessantly Renewed

Over the weekend a comment on a management blog referred to a piece by management writer Steve Denning in Forbes magazine. Entitled “The Key Missing Ingredient in Leadership Today”, it argued that real leadership is all about transforming systems, not … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged Apocalypse Now, bureaucracy, coercive bureaucracy, complex systems, context, creativity, crisis, Denning, Deresiewicz, destruction, discipline, ecological perspective, enabling bureaucracy, Forbes, Francis Ford Coppola, freedom, Heart of Darkness, hierarchy, identity, innovation, Joseph Conrad, know-how, know-what, means and ends, modular, narrative, power, renewal, ruin, Toyota Production System, West Point | Comments Off on Recipe for Ruin: Nothing Lasts Unless It Is Incessantly Renewed

Tattoos That Fit: Barclays, LIBOR, Culture and Regulation

The questioning of Barclays Bank’s Bob Diamond by the U.K. Parliamentary Committee on the LIBOR rate fixing scandal a couple of weeks ago was riveting. The unflappable Diamond deflected the MPs queries with a practised ease despite mounting evidence of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Anglo-Saxon capitalism, banking, Barclays, Bob Diamond, community, complex systems, context, culture, ecological process, gift economy, integrity, LIBOR, management ethics, Quakers, rate-fixing, regulation, Society of Friends, values | Comments Off on Tattoos That Fit: Barclays, LIBOR, Culture and Regulation

Why Walmart is Like a Forest: Excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership published in Strategy+Business

An excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership has just been published in Strategy+Business.  It draws the parallels between the growth of the Walmart stores and forest succession, suggesting that it is fundamentally an ecological process. You can read the excerpt here.

Posted in Change, General | Tagged bribery, context, ecology, forest succession, stores, The New Ecology of Leadership, Walmart | Comments Off on Why Walmart is Like a Forest: Excerpt from The New Ecology of Leadership published in Strategy+Business

Renewal in the West: Nature Bats Last

This year the annual fire season has come early to the Western regions of North America. In the southern mountains it has been prompted by a reduced snowpack, low rainfalls, blistering heat and low humidity. In the north, where the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged California wildfire, Cedar Fire, chaparral, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, fire, fire season 2012, fire-dependent, human community, lodgepole pine, mountain pine beetle, nature bats last, San Diego, Santa Ana wind, serotiny, Western forest | Comments Off on Renewal in the West: Nature Bats Last

In Praise of Ecological Rationality: The Return of Practical Wisdom to Management

This is the title of the article of mine published last week by the European Financial Review. It begins like this: Just over fifty years ago in America a concerted attempt was made to professionalize the field of management and … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Leadership | Tagged ba, both...and, ecocycle, ecological rationality, either/or, European Financial Review, existentialist, functional disciplines, functions, Haridomos Tsoukas, hermeneutist, Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, Jorgen Sandberg, Martin Heidegger, means and ends, phenomenologist, practical rationality, practical wisdom, Rene Descartes, Richard Feynman, rigor and relevance, scientifi rationality, theory and practice, William James, Yogi Berra | Comments Off on In Praise of Ecological Rationality: The Return of Practical Wisdom to Management

Obama and Romney: Prisoners of the System?

I spent Thursday and Friday of last week at a conference in Las Vegas where I was speaking. The meeting was put on by the Applied Finance Group (AFG), a financial consulting company who create sophisticated corporate valuation models for … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged addiction, Barack Obama, Clinton incrementalism, Congress, corruption, creative destruction, dependency, East Coker, ecological perspective, economic rents, Facebook, flat tax, gift economy, House of Representatives, Instagram, Lawrence Lessig, Milton Friedman, Mitt Romney, Republic Lost, Ronald Reagan, rootstriker, Senate, social traps, sunset clause, The New Ecology of Leadership, Thoreau, TS Eliot | Comments Off on Obama and Romney: Prisoners of the System?

Seeing The World With New Eyes

A few weeks ago I put on a seminar in New York City, kindly hosted by Kaihan Krippendorf. Kaihan is a management strategist, speaker and author who helps organizations “outthink” their competition. He is also an expert blogger for Fast … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Marcel Proust, naive, new eyes, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off on Seeing The World With New Eyes

Catch 22: The Anatomy of a Social Trap

Joseph Heller’s best-selling, satirical novel, Catch-22, gets it name from the self-contradicting circular logic that the book’s protagonist, Captain John Youssarian encounters while on active service as a B-25 bombardier during World War II. This was the logic that prevented … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged complex systems, fund returns, pension funds, public service, social traps, sustainability | Comments Off on Catch 22: The Anatomy of a Social Trap

The Spirit of Capitalism: the Quakers and the First Industrial Revolution

The ecological model in The New Ecology of Leadership shows enterprises as being conceived in passion and born in communities of trust and practice. My insights into this dynamic were first guided by my discovery of the Society of Friends, … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Adam Smith, Anglican Church, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Barclays Bank, Book of John, Book of Matthew, Catholic Church, charcoal, Christian calling, Coalbrookdale, coke, community, complex systems, engines, English Civil War, English Nonconformists, First Industrial Revolution, George Fox, ideology of markets, iron, Iron Bridge, Lloyds Bank, market price, Max Weber, means and ends, pots, pumps, Quakers, Robert Barclay, Royal Navy, Sermon on the Mount, Shropshire, skillets, Society of Friends, sociology of virtue, spirit of capitalism, The Wealth of Nations, Theory of Moral Sentiments, William Penn | Comments Off on The Spirit of Capitalism: the Quakers and the First Industrial Revolution ← Older posts Newer posts →