The cesspool syndrome

I’ve read and re-read the Arthur Bedeian and Achilles Armenakis article, The cesspool syndrome: how dreck floats to the top of declining organizations. In my opinion this article is worth the time to read. At its core it talks about how their research shows that unlike in successful organizations where the cream rises [...]

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The business environment has changed more rapidly than Middle management

Stephanie Armour in her USA Today article, “Who wants to be a middle manager?,” discusses the challenges facing today’s middle manager, and that a growing population of Generation X & Y employees do not view a move into middle management as a desirable career move.  The Gen X or Y managers that she interviewed discussed [...]

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Promise-Based Management

 

Most of the vexing challenges leaders face – improperly executed strategy, lack of organizational agility, disengaged employees, and so on – stem from broken or poorly crafted commitments.  Executives can overcome some of their thorniest problems in the short term and foster productive, reliable workforces for the long term by practicing what we call ‘promise-based [...]

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Nasty People Drain Productivity in the Workplace

I recently re-read the Robert Sutton article entitled Nasty People.  This article, which helped lead the way to his recently published book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace, discusses the impact that employees who create a hostile work environment have on others and the organization itself.  I immediately began to reflect on the [...]

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Perfecting product launches

 
The April 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review contained the article “Preparing for the perfect product launch” by James P. Hackett, President and CEO of Steelcase.  Hackett does a wonderful job of explaining the troubles that many organizations face when developing and launching new products and services – failing to adequately think out and [...]

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