“Can Entrepreneurs Save Newspapers?” Dunno. But you might. Newspapers are dying. Which means that it’s a great time for a hidden high potential to get into the News business with a completely different model. Crains Chicago has video on some new ideas coming out in town (that’s Chicago) to solve the newspaper problem. Both the Tribune and Sun-Times parent companies …
"You Can’t Handle Big Things Unless You Have An Organization"
Maybe it’s obvious, but humans built organizations because they helped them achieve things. Networks are nice, and very useful, but the Organization (which is a subtype of network) works in more specific ways. Daniel H. Burnham, the famous Chicago architect, felt something of this. Donald L. Miller, in City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of …
Using Requisite Organization to Manage Staff in an Evangelical Megachurch
The Rev. Dr. John Morgan is the head pastor of a growing independent Evangelical church in New Mexico that uses the mega-church model. Morgan wrote a chapter in the GO Society book (disclosure: I edited that piece) that does a good job describing his efforts and how Work Levels play out in independent churches. In these churches, the local congregation …
Warren Kinston on Democracy
You can’t see it until you see it. And once you see it, you can’t not see it! Last fall, Dr. Warren Kinston wrote a note on Democracy at the request of some of the dissident leaders in Thailand, where he has a home and spends about a quarter of his year. This is a rough draft, but he has …
Lord Wilfred Brown’s Training Films Now Available Online
The GO Society has quietly put up the Exploration in Management training films. These films, produced for the Glacier Institute of Management and narrated by Lord Wilfred Brown, the retired Managing Director of Glacier Metal Company and Prochancellor of Brunel University, show how the radical ideas Brown developed with Dr. Jaques work from a manager’s point of view. I’m glad …
Leadership Is Amoral: Review of Kellerman's "Bad Leadership"
I recently ran across Barbara Kellerman’s Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters (Leadership for the Common Good) (2004, Harvard Business School Press). Kellerman makes the argument that the current thinking on leadership is that it is always positive. Hitler is a bad leader because he did evil. People don’t talk about bad leadership and have …
"How To Make a Madoff"
Ben Levisohn, “How To Make A Madoff“, Business Week, December 16, 2008. You don’t have to do anything to get a Madoff. They are always with us, like the poor. The question is whether or not you will create the social structures that detect them early. In evolutionary psychology, this is called cheater detection and it makes up a major …
Wilfred Brown film series: Excerpt
I’ve been talking about how Wilfred Brown, management (heck, all-round) genius, made this series of films in the 1970s. Here’s an excerpt I pulled from the first film. This gives you a flavor of the series. The information is fascinating, especially when you know that Brown actually implemented these ideas at Glacier Metal Company.
Plus you get to hear Mr. Brown say “hear-ar-ky”.
Management Accountability Hierarchy Not Always Best (Elliott Jaques’s Requisite Organization)
Recently, a post from Tom Foster made me want to clarify something: The Management Accountability Hierachies described by Elliott Jaques are not always the most effective form of organization. Foster answers a question about the employees of a volunteer outreach center. He clearly believes that it requires a management accountability hierarchy (where there are clear lines of accountability and Real …
Reforming CEO Compensation
There’s a lot in the press these days about the irresponsibility of CEOs who lied, covered-up and generally made a lot of cash while destroying billions of dollars of value. For example, here’s something from the Vault’s article on “Are CEO’s Ready To Face Career Instability?“: As [reviled Lehman Brothers CEO] Richard Fuld’s Congressional testimony aptly underscores, if ever a …