Author Archives: David

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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

Words and Looks: Leadership Lessons from A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, was first published on December 19, 1843. So it’s close enough to roll this blog out again. Happy Holidays to all! Management gurus have drawn lessons on leadership from diverse sources, ranging from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit, change, Charles Dickens, community, Ebenezer Scrooge, Joseph Marley, Mr. Fezziwig, Tiny Tim | 1 Comment

The Ecology of Innovation

A few weeks ago I delivered a keynote presentation at the Innovation Congress in Villach Austria. I spoke for about 30 minutes on the topic of The Ecology of Innovation to a group of over 600 participants. I began by … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership | Tagged body language, ecological perspective, ecology of innovation, ecosystem, enterprise, exploitation, exploration, Innovation Congress, KPI, MIT, Sandy Pentland, Social Physics, steering, sweet zone, systems perspective, villach | Comments Off on The Ecology of Innovation

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

Oppressive Bureaucracies Are a Symptom Not a Cause: Part I

This week I am off to Austria for two conferences. I am a keynote speaker at the Innovation Congress in Villach on November 13, where I will be talking about “The Ecology of Innovation” and I will then travel to … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged bureaucracy, change, clueless leadership, community, Drucker Forum, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, embodied mind, Gary Hammel, GPDF14, hubris, hunter-gatherer, hunting dynamics, Innovation Congress, Jian Ghomeshi, myopia, The New Ecology of Leadership | Comments Off on Oppressive Bureaucracies Are a Symptom Not a Cause: Part I

The Great Transformation: a Historical Perspective

The sixth annual Drucker Forum takes place in Vienna from November 13 to 14. The theme is the “The Great Transformation: Managing Our Way to Prosperity” and the forum features a pantheon of the ABCs (academics, business people, and consultants) … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Adrian Wooldridge, Andrew Hill, Clayton Christensen, Conservative, Drucker Forum, Ecological Vision, Gary Hamel, Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, Great Transformation, liberal, Martin Wolf, Milton Friedman, Peter Drucker, Rita McGrath, Roger Martin, The Fatal Conceit, Walter Bagehot | Comments Off on The Great Transformation: a Historical Perspective

To Kill a Zombie: Ending Shareholder Primacy

The theme of the Drucker Forum to be held in Vienna November 13-14 this year is “The Great Transformation: Managing Our Way to Prosperity”. In the run-up to it Simon Caulkin wrote a mainly excellent article in the Financial Times … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged addiction dynamic, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, change, complex systems, crisis, Drucker Forum, Financial Times, Global Drucker Forum, Lynn Stout, shareholder value, Simon Caulkin, The Great Transformation, Upton Sinclair, vampire, zombie | Comments Off on To Kill a Zombie: Ending Shareholder Primacy

What They Should Be Teaching at Business Schools

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton had a recent blog in the Harvard Business Review entitled “How Business Schools Can Help Reduce Inequality” Here is my response: “What is needed is an ecological framework of “both…and” to … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Aspen Institute, business education, business schools, complexity, corporate purpose, ecological perspective, existential questions, Harvard Business Review, Judith Samuelson, Nitin Nohria, Tarun Khanna | Comments Off on What They Should Be Teaching at Business Schools

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 ← Older posts Newer posts →