Skip to content

Roundup: Lessons from every quarter

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Advice for effective management has been showing up in some of the most unlikely places over the past several weeks, or in unexpected guises. Let’s take a look at some of these, leavened with some real advice from some of the best management trainers around.

Clues to communication. The range begins at The Boston Globe, for an excellent piece on “cognitive fluency” and what it means for anyone – from managers to marketers and beyond – trying to make a message connect. It then moves on to Steve Roesler’s piece on getting your ideas heard – note point numbers one and two, in particular. Then we complete the journey to clarity with a classic memo, courtesy of John Phillips.

Obvious places. Start with this WSJ editorial on the dangers of believing your own PR. It’s a political piece, but the lesson is there to be had, whatever you may think of the choice of this particular object for the lesson. In the same vein, next view this by Steve Tobak at BNET, about key lies managers deceive themselves with.

Now, let’s return to the WSJ for this Fouad Ajami column; again, a political piece, same target. But leaving that aside, consider this sentence from it: “A charismatic leader had risen in a manner akin to the way politics plays out in distressed and Third World societies.” How does that insight, and what follows in the essay, translate to what we see in business? But to return to the subject of communication for a moment, please see this item from The Economist about how some politicians aren’t getting – don’t want to get – this increasingly strongly felt and urgently delivered message from the electorate.

Staying motivated. You will definitely want to see this terrific book review by Aubrey Daniels – and why it’s key message drives him crazy. And speaking of insufferably irritating, please see why forced fun can be much more damaging for a company than you might think, in this essay by Grant McCracken.

Unlikely places. Much has been made, of course, of the late-night host debacle of recent weeks in the US. One WSJ piece argues that it is a rich source of management lessons. Another insists that our very effort to find these in it is a condemnation of our individual and cultural common sense. What’s your view?

Here and there. Before leaving the WSJ, you will want to see this column about how the drive to diversity on boards can actually be quite destructive. Next, please be sure to see what management coach Katy Tynan has to say about handling conflict – well worth your time. Subscribe to her blog while you’re there.

You will surely want to see this from Miki Saxon about the real message in the failure of a football team. This is definitely a transferable lesson.

And finally, please do see this BBC piece about why you might want to be slimed – and what unexpected lessons you can learn even from that.

Enjoy your reading, and have a great weekend – see you soon!

—

Thanks for stopping by, today. If you enjoyed your visit, please take a moment to subscribe, so you can visit again in the future from the convenience of your email client or RSS reader.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Boards, Communication, Conflict, Individual Leadership, Management | | Comments (3)

The Management Uncertainty Principle

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

We’ve seen how physicists have discovered the limitations on their ability to attain precise and comprehensive knowledge about the characteristics of an object at a given moment in time. How certain, in the face of this from physics, are we in our own field that we can even identify precisely the vital components of management – or, even more implausibly, of individual leadership – much less take them on in our own persons or teach others to do so? If the physicists are having such a hard time with what most of us would acknowledge are at least legitimately testable scientific models and material, how reasonable is it for us in so soft a field as management and leadership to assert our certainty in these regards?

As it happens, there are researchers who adopt something very much like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle with respect to management. Perhaps the best known of them is Henry Mintzberg, who argues in his most recent book, Management (see review here), that there is so wide a range of factors impinging on what effective management actually winds up looking like – across industries, levels of management, business structure, geographic location, social and corporate culture, not to mention individual personality – that it is really unhelpful to insist on reducing it to a specific list of features or characteristics. Rather, he argues, it should be formulated and developed into specific practice according to an assessment of what he calls the three planes of information, action, and people.

Sounds rather mystical doesn’t it? But the interesting thing is that when you analyze the demands of your work on the basis of the information necessary and available, the actions you and others must take to advance it, and the qualities, abilities, and even locations of the people with whom you collaborate in so doing, it begins to make a lot of sense that the result for each of us in our varied circumstances would fall quite variously across a broader range of possibilities than the gurus, surely, would allow. Indeed, we become more certain about the veracity of our specific solutions, just as we become more doubtful about the more popular generalizations.

So, perhaps there is something to be said for uncertainty, after all. If we are willing to acknowledge its inherent influence in the world of work, we may wind up developing a personally more precise and effective appreciation of how it influences the form of effective management from where we stand at any given time and place. What’s more, we might be better prepared to more effectively develop anew that appreciation when our personal times and places change.

—

Today’s tip: Speaking of professors, we all know that they have generally a bias to the left – that is at last widely acknowledged. But there remains some controversy as to why that should be. Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong questions about it from the outset. Please see this NYT piece for an intriguing explanation.

—

Did you know you can click on the green “Share This” icon below and uplink this post to any of the major social content sites, or email it to your friends and colleagues – give it a try right now!

And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to subscribe, and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so, as well!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Management, The New Sciences | | Comments (5)

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

One of the most peculiar phenomenon uncovered in physics over the past century is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This states – to the great frustration and irritation of many – that we cannot know with precision both elements of certain pairs of characteristics of an object. Most commonly, position and velocity are used, and the meaning of the principle is that the more precise is our knowledge about an object’s position, the less so is our knowledge of its speed, and vice versa.

There is some debate about what this principle is saying to us at a fundamental level: is our current ability to measure these characteristics simply unable to grasp both at once, or is the inability to simultaneously measure both just inherent in the nature of the physical world? Can it possibly make any sense that if we know precisely the speed of an object, in the very act of attaining that knowledge we have reduced the fact of its location to a mere range of possibilities?

Some argue that that is exactly the case – that it is not merely that the object could be in any one of the places comprehended by the range of possibilities, but that it is at once in none and all of them. It is, they insist, in a suspended state of probability that is only glimpsed at by the probability range, and that will not become concrete until we abandon our precise knowledge of the other characteristic to the hazy realm of probability, and capture a particular location. We cannot know both, because there is no both; at least, not at the same time.

Does that make sense to you? Mind you, while many quantum physicists have a peculiar habit of adopting rather dogmatic attitudes about the oddest features suggested by the most distant, and least understood, corners reached by their meandering logical inquiries, the truth is that they really don’t know either. Even Einstein had difficulty with this one, although other physicists insist it is only the inevitable consequence of some of his own discoveries.

Well, let’s leave them to sort that out. How about us in management? We’ll look at that next. See you soon!

—

Today’s tip: Canada may not boast only one of the most insightful management thinkers around today (as we will see in the next post), but also the freest economy in North America. Please see this WSJ piece for why – and why there is even more bad news in this for the United States.

—

If you have enjoyed this post, please do join us by using the subscription links just below or at the top right of this page. And thanks – we look forward to your being aboard!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Management, The New Sciences | | Comments (5)

Notes for the New Year

Monday, January 11, 2010

Events drive others until you prioritize, imposing some degree of control on their flow and on the degree to which that affects you – or, better yet, reversing the direction of that influence. In my case, a re-prioritization was called for by events of late last year, and one of the events affected by it is the publishing schedule of this blog.

I long worked to present an essay or item a workday here. As it happens, I will not be able to maintain that. I am and will continue to review the means by which I get my message out, and this blog will remain an important part of the effort. But it will not be the venue for that every day or, even, regularly.

What will happen here is a periodic, probably once a week, commentary on current events in business and management, as well as in the perversely fascinating dialogue in these realms about individual leadership. This will sometimes take the form of a series of articles, as in the past; indeed, we are still in the midst of one that has another two or three essays in it.

Just as often, though, it will take the form of direct observations about a news item, another author’s views on a topic of interest here, or commentary on the latest drivel to drool out of the sundry schools of leadership “science,” which, despite ever-accumulating evidence of their irrelevance or, even, destructiveness, continue to assert their primacy and, sadly, to attract subscribers among we presumptively level-headed practitioners. Book reviews will also continue to be conducted here, as well as a “roundup” now and then.

So, I hope you will continue to keep this blog in your RSS reader or email subscription list, and stop by to view and participate in the discussion. Thanks for your support over the past 5 years or so – I will continue to work to earn it over the increasingly interesting years ahead.

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Personal Observations | | Comments (5)

A Baker’s Dozen plus one for 2010

Friday, January 1, 2010

It is time to offer a list of recommended additions to your daily reading list – sources that have found their way firmly on to mine over the past year. Some have clear staying power, and others are new, but promise to be keepers.

I hope you will bookmark this page and give them all a thorough visit over the next week or so. I am confident you’ll be glad you did.

Here they are, in random order:

Please do enjoy, and use these terrific resources to help fuel a productive, rewarding, and profitable New Year for you all.

—

And while you’re subscribing to those, please do take a moment as well to subscribe, either by email or RSS reader, to Managing Leadership, to be sure you receive future articles as they’re published.

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Personal Observations | | Comments (9)

Thanks for your contributions in 2009!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Easily one of the most gratifying aspects of authoring a site like this is the interaction offered by visitors from around the world. They present thoughtful and engaging comments from which we all learn so much, not least of which, often enough, are the contributors’ own web sites.

Below please find, in no particular order, the many fine thinkers who, over the past year, were kind enough to visit these pages, and gracious enough to offer their views for our consideration (with embedded links to their own sites where provided):

Many thanks to all of you, and best wishes to you and to all our visitors for the Holidays and the New Year. See you again then!

—

Please do take a moment to subscribe, either by email or RSS reader, to be sure you receive future articles as they’re published.

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Personal Observations | | Comments (0)

Hardly worth the bother

Thursday, December 10, 2009

We’ve been looking at how various modern professionals look at the questions of how the universe works, what our place is in it, and which elements – physical reality or psychic will – drive which. But this is an ancient question. And the earliest of those who asked it never thought to separate the two realms of investigation.

One of these was a Greek philosopher who argued that there was definitely life after death. In fact, he insisted, it was exactly the same as life before death. No difference at all – mom, dad, the kids, the cat – they’re all there, and everything proceeds as it had previously.

One day as he preached these ideas, he was asked, “If everything’s the same after death as now, why don’t you commit suicide and be done with it?” He didn’t miss a beat. “If everything’s the same,” he replied, “why should I?”

While we continue to pursue the question of what the answers to questions like these – or even just the act of asking them – mean for management, you will want to consider how you would answer such a question. It’s not a superfluous exercise. The state of our knowledge about the universe and our place in it is no less important to all of us than is the nature of corporate enterprise and the role of management in it is to managers.

And yet, stentorian declarations of absolute certainty explode in regular intervals over the the fields of debate for both, pocking them with dangerous obstacles for those of us trying our best to simply make our way through. Indeed, many of us adhere to one or another of these creeds simply to relieve the tension we feel over the unresolved questions, or to give definition to unexplored predispositions to which we are inclined.

But at some point, some one or some thing is going to draw attention to the illogical conclusions that so frequently lie at the end of these blindly followed rhetorical paths. When that happens to you, will you be able to meet it with the presence of mind of our friend the Greek philosopher?

Let’s see how that works out as we proceed. Next, we’ll take a look at how these questions more specifically are asked and answered in management. Then we’ll move on to see how some try to put them together. Please do stay with us!

—

Today’s tip: Speaking of presence of mind, please see this WSJ piece about how investors at one company are being worked on by its managers in order to smooth the way toward their paying themselves grand bonuses. Perhaps there will be a difference after death for such as these.

—

Have you noticed the blue “Sphere” icon, below? When you click on it, it will produce a window offering you content related to today’s item from other blogs and the regular media. Give it a try!

And, while you’re clicking around down there, don’t forget to subscribe, by email or RSS reader.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sphere: Related Content

Filed in Corporate Governance, Management | | Comments (2)

Bad Behavior has blocked 2477 access attempts in the last 7 days.