On management
We’re all great drivers – so we think and self-report… but what would other drivers say? Same with management.
One more time: How do I lead by example? – You don’t. You never do. “Leading by example” is based on a faulty assumption.
A genius is the one most like himself: Thelonious Monk’s tips for musicians - encouraging managers I work with to have a readme document for themselves and to have a structured, personal way of welcoming new members to their team.
On the difference between management and leadership
Here’s why you are skeptical about empowerment - empowerment can lead to more autonomous employees, but micromanagers will micromanage.
The strength of weak ties - on generating random conversations across the company that can lead to solutions by connecting people who might otherwise never talk
The job candidate selection process is a fail. Try this.- relating my experience with the owner/manager of a large, successful engineering firm (it might have been the largest in the country at the time) that had a unique way of selecting and hiring candidates.
How should I react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake? - The research says the more compassionate response will get you more powerful results.
Creativity: it’s about exploration v. exploitation - a meta-analysis of the research on creativity
How do I know my people won’t watch Netflix all day? - Short answer: Netflix isn’t the real danger.
Post-covid19 job interview - A question job candidates should ask
A first-person account of switching from engineer to manager - Don’t do it if you consider it a promotion. (…) Also don’t do it if you want to micromanage or control your team members, or want the authority to correct bad behaviour. There are plenty good reasons why you should.
A list of best practices will not make you a great company … any more than finding a recipe will make you a great cook.
Stop mulling over millennials - They want the same things from their employers that Generation X and Baby Boomers do
A modest proposal: eliminate email - of course, I don’t want to eliminate it altogether. But there are ways for it to serve you… and not the other way around.
Because you don’t hire half a person - a quote from Peter Drucker, “the father of management”, worth thinking about
We’re all rational decision makers? Think again. - we are imperfectly rational creatures who make sub-optimal decisions. It’s time to re-visit our assumptions.
Holding a meeting of people from different cultures - what the research says
Mintzberg: time to think of organizations as communities of cooperation - and in so doing put leadership in its place
Managers who claim to know the future are more often dangerous fools than great visionaries - in a complex and changing world, better foxes than hedgehogs
Why management matters - the battle of ideas is decided not by which best explain the world but which most affect it
All of business is about values, all of the time - our focus on the factual is actually a moral decision
Leçon pour chefs d’entreprise: « Václav Havel a toujours douté de lui-même » - la personification de l’idéal platonique selon lequel au pouvoir il faut des gens qui ne veulent pas gouverner
Pep Guardiola y Fernando Trueba hablan de dirección - un técnico de fútbol y un director de cine nos dan la mejor conversación sobre el oficio del manager
The dumbest idea in the world: maximizing shareholder value - a question that informs all decisions we make in business organizations
When is the last time you saw such a CEO? - the unusual and inspiring practices of the head of Japan Airlines
The difference between management theorists and philosophers - the first difference is philosophers are much better at knowing what they don’t know. There is a second one.
Mind your metaphors: We’re a team, not a family - in a family you never can fire somebody like your Uncle Joe. In a team, everybody’s got a role to play.
Mintzberg’s latest on managing - managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. One step removed, [managers] manage people. And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action
Life lessons delivered on sidelines - There is what you do in the position. And there is who you choose to be in the position.
Evidence-Based Management - the 5 principles
Reacting to decline, dissatisfaction and dilemmas - I discuss the five ways in which people will react when conflicted
Looking for ways to cut red tape?
Hamel on management innovation - not operational innovations. Innovation in management principles and processes that ultimately changes the practice of what managers do, and how they do it.
Sutton on Pfeffer - Professor Bob Sutton of Stanford University identified the three greatest living organizational theorists. All three have practical, actionable research well worth being familiar with.
Netflix to employees: Take as much vacation as you want
Managers need fable not fact - it’s about storytelling
How do you set people on fire? - first, toss your powerpoint slides. it’s (again) about storytelling
Manager or Computer? - advantage managers if and only if they make a strength of their “weakness”: that they acknowledge and correct their mistakes.
Henry Mintzberg on heroic managers - don’t be one. Be an engaging manager.
Whole-brain management - insights grounded in the fundamentals of the human condition
Fortune: Jack Welch rules no more - RIP the Darwinian approach to management.