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November 19th, 2014

Not even bottom-up. Certainly not top-down. Lasting organizational change is a polycentric social movement, or it isn’t.

In organizational life we are used to the dichotomy ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom up’, for example, when we talk about change. […]
November 18th, 2014

Big Banks have been fined again. A tiny fraction of the fines with the right behavioural change approach would change their cultures for ever.

It seems like the Weekly News about Banks Bad Behaviour. This time about  big fines. ‘Between fines and legal costs, […]
November 17th, 2014

Failure has become a badge of honour in some places. Or at least, something to show on the CV as an asset.

A recent article in the New York Times refers to a Conference/initiative in San Francisco where the agenda is built […]
November 16th, 2014

‘I told them once; they didn’t understand. I told them twice; they didn’t understand. I told them three times … and I understood’

I don’t know where this quote comes from, but I have always seen it as a source of reflection on […]
November 15th, 2014

The only common feature that successful companies share, is that they are not failing.

Management Theory (if there is one) and management practice are not physics. We don’t have very solid data about what […]
November 14th, 2014

Not all ambiguity in the organization is bad. There is, in fact, ‘good ambiguity’ and ‘bad ambiguity’.

In most organizations there is a certain dose of ambiguity: accountabilities not completely clear, some overlapping of responsibilities, dynamic tensions […]
November 13th, 2014

If you want to increase employee engagement and employee satisfaction, increase your company performance (yes, the order is not a typo)

There is evidence, intelligently articulated by Phil Rosenzweig in 2007 (The Halo Effect), that a series of measures of employee […]
November 12th, 2014

Great players, great training, wrong game

It’s a new world out there. You’ll realize this truth if you open the windows of your organization and let […]
November 11th, 2014

The Lego and the Jigsaw: two ways to build an organization

In the previous Daily Thoughts posting, I said that successful growth contains the seeds of its failure. Managing the organizational […]
November 10th, 2014

Every successful company’s growth contains seeds of failure. At some point, organizational complexity could outweigh the business benefits.

Organizations grow in many ways: organically and quietly, organically and exponentially, by acquisitions or mergers etc. In every step of […]
November 9th, 2014

Lose control, to gain more control (2/2) Starting the Control Diet

I said in the first part of this Daily Thought that we needed to grab the (management) Paradox of Control. […]
November 8th, 2014

Lose control, to gain more control (1/2) : The paradox and the symptoms

From my Disruptive Ideas book and Accelerator, I’d like to bring this one to the table as a follow up […]
November 7th, 2014

The cost of checking. Looking at number one cause of organizational ineffectiveness.

If somebody would care to quantify the cost of constantly checking with people whether they are doing what they are […]
November 6th, 2014

Preserving the problem when dedicated to finding the solution.

It’s called the Shirky principle,  after Clay Shirky, prolific American author of bestsellers such as ‘Here comes everybody’(2008)  and ‘Cognitive […]
November 5th, 2014

‘I am now senior enough that I only ask questions’

I heard this as a true statement attributed to a Japanese executive in a corporate meeting. Apparently this person had […]
November 4th, 2014

A small family farm in Italy: my old MBA had the wrong toolkits

When I did my MBA, many moons ago, I had to go through lots of case studies. What else? I […]
November 3rd, 2014

Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: in-habitants in team-work, riders in net-work.

The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]
November 2nd, 2014

Madam, the ribbon is free.

‘Discovering’ an old article that I wrote years ago, when I used to have a management column in a monthly […]
November 1st, 2014

It’s now official: change is ‘activist’ driven. There is now a McKinsey article on this. Wait a minute. Viral Change was first published in 2006

I am delighted that a McKinsey article on ‘change’ in October 2014 (‘Build a change platform, not a change program’) […]
October 31st, 2014

A behavioural epidemic can’t be fought from within. It needs a behavioural counter-epidemic to take over

I have explored this theme before in my Daily Thoughts (June 4th)  but I feel compelled to go back! Behavioural […]