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  Daily Thoughts

April 17th, 2015

Our real worlds and their avatars: management beware.

In the words of a pioneer of Psychology, we’d be better off grabbing the reality of humanity for what it […]

April 17th, 2015

My Stockholm (airport) Syndrome

Arriving at the clean and clinical Stockholm airport, my pre-booked taxi is failing me. I have some time to spear […]

April 15th, 2015

Karaoke management consulting

Is this what people want? Singing along what the Big Gurus have provided? Music and lyrics? Some times I feel […]

April 14th, 2015

The Returning Bomber Paradox: a case of reframing the problem. More on Critical Thinking.

In WWII there was a curious episode of injection of critical thinking, not entirely well publicised. Big airplanes bombers in […]

April 13th, 2015

‘Invert, always invert’: a fundamental, zero-cost, unstuck management technique

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, a 19th century Swiss mathematician is remembered by many things in his scientific turf, but by […]

April 12th, 2015

Bring ‘character’ back.

We call it character assassination for a reason. It’s the ultimate attack. The attack to the uniqueness of an individual, […]

April 11th, 2015

Hang on, I thought lions…

This is a quote repeated hundred times, attributed to hundred people, reproduced in hundred posters and that you can find […]

April 10th, 2015

The market for Second Hand Thoughts is flourishing, never been so huge. But outsourcing your mind is the ultimate laziness.

Many of us spend quite a lot of our time in what we call ‘work’. The business day has now […]

April 9th, 2015

The End of Management, not the end of managing. Here I go again.

In the organization, ‘people mobilization’ is the name of the game It is the working title of one of my […]

April 8th, 2015

The “Sokal Syndrome”: Intellectual nudity, Intellectual Impostures, Mind Grafitters and Airport Books Business School Graduates

The 1966 Spring/Summer (special) issue of Social Text, an academic, “fashionable American cultural studies journal”, featured an article entitled “Transgressing […]

April 7th, 2015

Corporate language needs a transfusion of humanity. It can be done.

Corporate speak is of course tribal. So, to belong, you have to speak the tribal idiom. I have just finished […]

April 6th, 2015

Corporate culture? Start with subcultures, find the tribes, and look for the unwritten rules of their dynamics.

With some exceptions, there is no such a thing as single, global, monolithic corporate culture. There is usually a confederation […]

April 5th, 2015

Diversity is not a ratio.

Wow! A woman at the helm! I still remember, vaguely, the first time I heard in one of my multiple […]

April 4th, 2015

Busy-ness is either a symptom, a warning, or a serious disease. Never a healthy state.

Busyness could be a cancer. It has nothing to do with business even if it’s just one letter different. Busyness […]

April 3rd, 2015

‘Memorable’ is beautiful. ‘Exceeding expectations’ is sad, tired, and as charismatic as a dead fish

Meeting expectation, exceeding expectations and all that jazz! It’s often said that success equals performance minus expectations. Three comments on […]

April 2nd, 2015

Does the distinction ‘leader-manager’ need to be retired? I dare to suggest.

I must confess I have always been, I suspect one of the very few, uncomfortable with the distinction leader-manager. It […]

April 1st, 2015

Alibi to keep the status quo: ‘We are a regulated industry’

Amongst my clients I have a good representation of ‘regulated industries’ such as pharmaceuticals and financial services. I, myself, spent […]

March 31st, 2015

Nine basic contradictions in organizational life. Ignore at your peril.

Mastering healthy tension between them, or surrounding to an ‘impossible alignment’ is a choice for leaders and managers. The worse […]

March 30th, 2015

Science advances by a series of funerals. And some management practices are not feeling very well.

‘Science advances by a series of funerals’. This is how John Brockman, founder of The Edge, and editor of a […]

March 29th, 2015

Benchmarking as a health hazard. Cause of managers severe neck pain confirmed

Benchmarking is a rear-mirror strategy. It’s about catching up with something that has already happened. People who spend too much […]