Culture is a surprisingly controversial subject. Part of the reason for this is that it is a persistently mysterious one. We never know, despite the reasonably useful definitions of it that are available, if we really are confronting the elements of true culture, or just those of passing fancy. It can be a problem if we mistake the latter for the former . . .
Napoleon, for all his epochal shortcomings, had many valuable insights. One of them was that one should never mistake the mood of an army for its morale. It may be in a foul – even a wounded – mood, while its morale remains as ferociously martial as ever. The distinction may be made of corporate mood and morale, as well. . .
One of the many problems encountered by managers is maintaining the link between focus and perspective. The more responsibility you acquire, and the higher you go – indeed, the more quickly you rise – the more risk you run of thinking that what got you there is what everyone wants more of. A conspicuous case in point is crisis management. . .
Some time ago we looked at Peter Drucker’s views on what managers do. But what about the organization itself – how is it to be designed to help managers grow power, as Mary Parker Follett argued it should, in such away that it is available as capacity where needed? To begin with, let’s look at this summary, from Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, which Drucker provided of his thinking on the topic . . .
Just as the tumult about how to be a leader drowns out consideration of what leadership is and why we should trouble ourselves about it, the rush to ride the crest of change often begs the question of what is wagging what. That is: why change?
Let’s leave aside – just for today – the many difficult questions raised together with the problematic prospect of change in an organization. We will presume, for the sake of our main discussion, that we have a perfectly valid and widely accepted change project under consideration. What does it do to or for the organization? [...]
Even leaving aside the highly problematic argument that a leader’s role is to change people, the question of change as more generally a leadership function given expression in organizations has its own shortcomings. Most of these are self-inflicted. . .
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