How would you describe the impact of your organization’s reputation on overall business performance? Trust may play a big part in building that reputation, but how closely are trust and reputation linked to better earnings? To what degree does your corporate reputation drive the behaviours (recommending, purchasing, investing etc) of your firm’s main stakeholder groups? […]
Subject: Organizational Effectiveness
Developing Network Perspective: Social Networks and Leadership
Though formal hierarchies continue to be an integral part of organizational structures, in recent years individuals have been required to look beyond these towards the informal and invisible structures supporting an organization. This is referred to as ‘network perspective’ in a 2013 White Paper by the Center for Creative Leadership’s Kristin Cullen, Charles Palus and […]
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Indirect Control: The Future of Management?
Executives and managers are inundated with management theories, philosophies and models, many of which offer contradictory advice. One dilemma they face is whether to grant employees autonomy or to use control to guide their performance. Both approaches have their merits. Autonomy and independence are important for employee engagement and, by extension, ‘discretionary effort’, productivity and […]
Four Ways CEOs Can Align Function Heads with Corporate Strategy
Most organizations are split into different business divisions that all report to a corporate office. This office houses the CEOs and other corporate functions, such as HR, finance and IT. In recent years, these functions have often underperformed and corporate offices have failed to add value. Could the reason behind this be that CEOs do […]
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Organizational Identity and Adaptation to Disruptive Change
Discontinuous technologies refers to when new products are created that end up transforming existing markets, such as cloud computing, digital photography, 3D printing, online news, etc. Not surprisingly, they often pose a critical challenge for executives, and how they deal with such major paradigm shifts has formed the basis of a number of recent articles. […]
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Innovation: Seeing the Wood for the Trees
In 2013 Benner and Tushman’s research was awarded the impressive accolade of ‘Paper of the Decade’ by the American Academy of Management Review. For this reason alone it merits revisiting, but the research also contains findings that are as relevant and useful to businesses today as they were 10 years ago. Put simply, this research finds […]
Reasons to Be Cheerful: Positivity Linked to Profitability
It is important to draw a distinction between over-confidence and over-optimism in business. The former can be seen as a pejorative term, linked to arrogance and hubris, and the latter as more ‘neutral’. Over-confident managers underestimate the risks of their decisions; over-optimistic ones are biased towards larger growth projections than the figures suggest. So is […]
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Avoiding the Acceleration Trap
Perhaps at one time, ‘corporate burnout’ was attributed to few, mostly C-suite executives. Now, it is much more commonly experienced by employees at all levels of an organization. Increased competition and market pressures means organizations frequently take on more in terms of activities, goals, technologies, etc. than they can handle for a sustained period of […]
Gamification and Games at Work that Work
Researchers have long noted that employees will sometimes spontaneously create games as a way of improving their work experience, helping them to not only pass the time but also alleviate the less pleasant aspects of their work. More recently, managers and employers have gotten involved by creating their own games for employees to play in […]
Bad Weather Means Better Productivity
Seasonal depression is well-known and has traditionally been easy to recognize: difficulty concentrating, low levels of energy, etc. — all related to bleak winter weather conditions. So naturally, it follows that we assume the opposite in weather conditions leads to positive outcomes. Indeed, some previous studies have found this link to be true, linking good […]