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May 31st, 2015

‘We should have done’ and ‘too bad we didn’t’. Don’t push the self-suffocating , negative button

  The cartoon has been all over the place. There is a sad side of the funny side and the […]
May 30th, 2015

The organization’s collective self-belief is often hidden. Leaders need to hear the unsaid.

Some organisations, or groups inside the organisation, suffer from lack of self belief. You could say weak self esteem. The […]
May 29th, 2015

The hard sell of a big theme supported by dubious, incoherent but dramatically presented evidence

he British journalist, Bryan Appleyard called Gladwellism: the hard sell of a big theme supported by dubious, incoherent but dramatically […]
May 28th, 2015

In-company clicktivism, not an elevated form of engagement

Clicktivism is a form of digital /online engagement that requires the extraordinary effort of one of your fingers, possibly the […]
May 27th, 2015

The Zappos inmates running the asylum, take two.Warning: this post contains flashes of cut-and-paste organizational models.

I wrote about Zappos and Holacracy here, and got lots of questions. This is take two. In my work on […]
May 26th, 2015

Employees don’t need ‘Voice’. They were born with one. Employee Voice is an alibi for lazy Employee Engagement.

Promoting Parallel Monologues don’t make up employee engagement. A rich world of parallel monologues, don’t make even a poor employee […]
May 25th, 2015

Zappos without the zapatos: not all inmates want to take over the asylum.

Zappos, (from zapatos, Spanish for shoe) has gone self-management. If you have not heard about Zappos, it does not mean […]
May 24th, 2015

The Company Global One Culture does not exist. But pretending that it does holds us together.

The so called One Global Culture is a confederation of (a) Geographical cultures and sub-cultures (Italy, USA, France etc) (b) […]
May 23rd, 2015

Status Unfinished: the perfect state of a healthy organization is beta

The perfect state of a healthy organization is unfinished. Like a human being. ‘Born too early’ (Campbell’s hero). Finished structures […]
May 22nd, 2015

‘You make sense’, is the greatest compliment in the era of non-sense-making

I have explained to a client the logic and principles of the Viral Change Platform. I did not want to […]
May 21st, 2015

Culture secret in one line: people look up, and people look sideways. And also down. As simple as easily dismissed.

People look up. What the immediate boss does and says. What ‘management’ do and say. In some cultures, this is […]
May 20th, 2015

There will always be hierarchy, power and rituals in the organization. The question is how smart we are to chose the right trade off.

Every new form of management, or organizational structure and model, contains all the old mechanisms of management and organizational models. […]
May 19th, 2015

The indecision is final. Keep calm and wait for the next.

A previous Daily Thought about decisions mentioned 3 reasons why decision making may be a problem in the organization (1) […]
May 18th, 2015

That great new hire, welcome with fanfare, saviour of the team, is leaving. Oh well!

Despite being repeated thousand times, hiring processes are still quite imperfect. Of course there are many places in which this […]
May 17th, 2015

Always explain the trade off. There is always one, and people can always understand it

Many problems with decision making inside the company can be attributed to three causes: 1. Bad process 2. Good processes […]
May 16th, 2015

Good silos, bad silos is like good cholesterol and bad cholesterol

It could be argued that ‘silos’ are part of the human condition and group interaction, and Chris Rodgers (Informal Coalitions) […]
May 15th, 2015

Mathematize: the 9 things you need to know about things that start with numbers

Mathematizable thinking is like soldiers building a frontier with razor wired walls. There is an enclosed world and a world […]
May 14th, 2015

Walking Emergencies in the payroll

Years ago, when in corporate life and corporate payroll (yes, I was, before funding The Chalfont Project), we, non -Americans, […]
May 13th, 2015

Most likely the problem is not ‘knowing’. So, (1) re-training is a distraction; (2) Behaving is the issue; (3) That means culture,

The oil industry leaders/workers/people in the payroll who triggered the BP oil spill disaster, knew the rules, knew what needed […]
May 12th, 2015

The Twentypercenters

It is said that in any organization, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I often think that […]