Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
There’s a brief Q & A interview with the CEO of Dutch-based firm Wolters Kluwer in the Sunday, December 13, 2009 New York Times. While the title is Managing Globally, And Locally, the insights are more than that: there are rather three other key management lessons that any aspiring senior exec should take to heart.
What are they?
1. CEO McKinstry speaks to the importance the impact of tone (my word) she sets from the top.… Read the rest
The subject of the call with the pharma CEO was not new territory for either one of us: the non-executive chairman of his company’s board wanted to micromanage and get deeply involved when he had the time or interest, and would go missing in action when the heavy or unpleasant work (like letting the founder know he was off the board of directors) came around.… Read the rest
My doctor Michael Sdao practices what he terms “evidence-based” medicine: he puts his faith primarily in approaches and procedures that have been validated by substantiated research. While it’s not necessarily the most daring of approaches, in the main the outcomes (knock on wood) have been pretty good.
Organizations, on the other hand, are pretty hit and miss as it pertains to using human capital systems and processes that have been validated by evidence based research.… Read the rest
I don’t live in Marin County, California even though my son goes to grade school there. And I’ll confess that I am more likely than not to be Marin-a-phobic.
So if this post reads a little too new age, dharma breath, hot tubs, and organic tofu – in other words, all the stuff you might associate with Marin – be aware that I am one of the most earnest and pragmatic people around.… Read the rest
Burning Man , that once a year event around the US Labor Day holiday where 50,000 mostly strangers set up an instant community in the Black Rock Desert area of northeastern Nevada evokes a couple, at least, of reactions.
For people from the North American Pacific West, it’s another mostly ho-hum event in which people learn, laugh, love, work, and have fun.… Read the rest
It’s easy in troubled times – the Great Depression and World War II in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the late 1960’s and today’s times all come to mind – to wax nostalgic for the "good old days" and the presumed leadership that guided a nation’s people through those times.
Great leadership, whether it’s community or corporate, are leaders who effectively take a community or company from Point A to Point B: Moses, for example, or A.… Read the rest