I’ve been attending the Global Conference on Org Design here in Toronto, and some of the things that the speakers here have been saying will be relevant to all of y’all who are high-potentials who languish in underemployment with bosses who think much smaller than you do. You’re in your thirties and weren’t tapped as the Golden Boy or Girl …
Global RO Conference: First Report
So, I am attending the Global Org Design Conference in Toronto, Ontario this week. It’s a working conference: I’m filming the sessions. Something that can actually get quite tiring. Right now I’m beat after just two days of filming. Harder than I recalled. There are some wonderful people here. I finally met Barry and Sheila Deane from Australia. Barry and …
Increase Sales 30% In A Recessionary Flat Market
I wrote the following for another site. It will be pretty heavily edited and changed prior, but I’m pretty pleased with it as is. So I’m posting it here for y’all’s enjoyment. I will upload the image files later. They aren’t necessary but you get a good idea of the structural changes that this company underwent. When Mike Thieneman and …
Offshore Outsourcing: Undeniable Failure?
One the biggest problems facing outsourcing projects stems from the cost savings themselves. Most companies determine the size and level of a project or work by its cost. They don’t assign work based upon its strategic value or (following Dr. Jaques and Lord Brown) on a measure of complexity. They simply assign it based on cost. Let’s look at what this does for outsourcing work.
Controlling Language Doesn’t Motivate People to Follow the Rules
How you set limits to others and to yourself (along with your personal interpretation of the limit setting) determines whether your motivation comes from within and works or comes from without and destroys enthusiasm.
![HQ of the Council of the European Union, Justus Lipsius building, meeting room for working groups [detail] (2007) by Szilas. Via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)](https://i0.wp.com/www.manasclerk.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HQ-of-the-Council-of-the-European-Union-Justus-Lipsius-building-meeting-room-for-working-groups-By-Szilas-Via-Wikimedia-CC-BY-SA-3-DETAIL-1900x955.jpg?fit=862%2C433&ssl=1)
Velvet Gloves & Iron Fists
A post by Al Gorman The managerial objective of every workplace is to create a supercharged environment where employees work in cooperation with each other, employing individual best effort, to deliver the outputs defined within the task assignments delegated by management to the employees. A little later we’ll explore the concept of Objectivisim…objective/ objectivism seems compatible doesn’t it? The reality …
I’ve Got You the Discount: Get To The Most Important Conference of Your Career
I don’t shill much. Ever. I don’t even shill my own services here. But I’m going to shill a great conference that is being held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in early August. From 8-11 August 2005, the Global Organization Design Society is holding its first conference on scientific management. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn more about the findings that …
Karen Stephenson and How Networks Interweave with Hierarchies
HR.com recently had an interview with Karen Stephenson, the professorial founder of NetForm and the leading thinker in social network analysis. Dr. Stephenson notoriously doesn’t publish anything, preferring to patent her ideas. I think that she has combined hierarchy and social network into something more powerful. Jaques & Co. always needed something to counterbalance the top-down mentality and social network …
What is a Team?
HR.com’s recent interview with Jon R. Katzenbach piqued my interest. Katzenbach wrote The Wisdom of Teams, among others. He was probably interviewed to shill his new book, but the idea of teams is one that intriguing. Do teams work? is really my question. Katzenbach admits that the team approach to work is tricky in implmentation: What we have learned since …
Wolfowitz on Decision-Making
In this summer’s Atlanitc has an article describing a series of interviews that Mark Bowden held with Paul Wolfowitz from September 2004 to April 2005, before the American deputy secretary of defense took his new job heading the World Bank. Wolfowitz is a fascinating thinker, regardless of whether or not you agree with his politics of conservative realism. For the …