Economic Pessimism
Everyone seems to be waiting it out, but for some the walls
are closing in on them. No one wants to admit they made a mistake. No one wants
to sell their house for less than they bought it for. But that is what is
happening. And the small population of people that can’t afford their adjustable
rate loans are about to have no choice. But Joe Average is waiting for the tide
to turn back. …
Organizational Leadership – Opportunity Culture
We are now at the point where we have an executive level of
leadership and an expert level of execution. We have Governance to tie them
together and we have simple rules to guide their actions. …
Organizational Leadership – Empowering Your Experts
The third step in Organizational Leadership is empowering
your experts. You have a two tier system and to support it you established a
means for creating rules and governing those rules.
It is time to unleash the swarm.
…
Organizational Leadership – Establishing Rules
If the notion is correct and the United States turns into a
two tier work system, then after a certain threshold of growth is reached every
company would start to see diminishing returns. Unless the company implements a
form of Governance to loosely tie together the different departments. …
Organizational Leadership – Introduction
There is a notion that the United States work environment
will morph into a two tier system. The first tier is the Executive Leadership.
This group determines the direction of the corporation or business unit and the
strategy to get there. The second tier is the people who provide the services
to implement the strategy. …
Cloud Computing and IBM
I wrote a post earlier in the month about Cloud Computing. I
wrote it primarily because of my excitement as an end user, but now seeing an
announcement from IBM, I’m excited
as someone in the IT field. IBM tends to
shift viewpoints. It happened with Linux and made Open Source
much more
acceptable as a corporate strategy. …
Next Generation CEO
Nelson D. Schwartz wrote a terrific article in
the NY Times
this past weekend. It is titled C.E.O.
Evolution Phase 3. What is so great
about the article is an identification of the time for CEO change. After the
bubble burst in 2000 many people started seeing the need for a new guard in
2001. It was pretty obvious. What is going on right now isn’t as clear or
apparent as what happened then. But the new guard that came in 2001 isn’t new
anymore and the problems they came to fix aren’t the problems of today. …
All Kinds of Advice
The other day I was clearing out my working space. I changed jobs and the group I used to work for needs the space I was in. Fair enough. So I sat in that cubicle for about 4 years. I tend to be a pack rat. I keep everything. What caught my eye were all [...]
Tipping Point Leadership
I recently moved my work materials out of the cubicle that I’ve had for about four years. I’ve accumulated a lot of junk, but also, a lot of great learning materials. One that I found and reread this past weekend is “Tipping Point Leadership” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne from 2003. Much of the Harvard Business Review article can be found in the book Blue Ocean Strategy. The main focus of the article is on Bill Bratton, the man who changed NYC in the ’90s from a city with fearful citizens to one considered very safe. The article outlines the steps Bratton takes to achieve his goals. The writers also employ what they call a Strategy Canvas to compare the relative level of investment against the different areas of concentration in Law Enforcement. They compare what was happening before Bratton arrived to after he came in. The improvements are amazing.
Using Fables
For kicks I ordered and read Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Kotter is the guy that wrote Leading Changeand The Heart of Change. I’ve read neither of them but I’ve heard of each. I figured this would be a new way to get exposure to his ideas. But what Kotter does is take an idea from Spencer Johnson ( Who Moved My Cheese?) and creates a 147 page fable about Penguins. This book is easy to read and I wouldn’t expect anyone to take more than 3 hours to read the first time. Simplicity is key.