Management Research, Consulting, Teaching. Organizational Behavior, Human Resources, Strategy.
March 28, 2011 Leave a Comment
Once upon a time, someone told me to “come back with solutions, not with problems.” After the sting wore off–and especially as I started to move up in various organizational positions–I came to realize the wisdom of his words. Read more of this post
December 3, 2010 1 Comment
For a long while now, I’ve been considering downloading and familiarizing myself with R. What is “R?” It’s an open-source statistical data analysis program. The huge plusses are that it’s free and can do many of the types of analysis that often require different types of programs. Read more of this post
August 19, 2010 Leave a Comment
Running a small business is a monumental effort. To stay competitive, you need a high-performing team that can solve problems, find opportunities, and identify potential threats—a team that is highly reliable in the face of adversity.
For a limited time, I’m offering a free assessment for small businesses with at least 4 total employees. This assessment will provide the business owner or primary manager with valuable insight into their own leadership style and their team’s perceptions of group processes and communication. Click here for a sample report that provides a precise preview of what you’ll get for your participation. Read more of this post
May 7, 2010 1 Comment
The world of work is changing in a way that easily rivals that of the Industrial Revolution. Business—and how people organize in general—is increasingly global, aided by information transfer via the Internet and ever-increasing computing power. The search for sustainable competitive advantage remains paramount, of course, but that quest is taking new forms, with implications for business, society, and people’s careers. Read more of this post
April 21, 2010 6 Comments
In the popular business press, it seems that talk about differences across the various generations of workers—be they “Baby Boomers,” “Generation Xers,” or “Millennials”—is everywhere. And don’t even get me started on the blogs. At the extremes, many of these sources make it sound like managing young workers is akin to managing a different species, some sort of spoiled-yet-independent, narcissistic-yet-altruistic global citizen. The bottom-line assumption of most of these arguments is that the “millennial generation” approaches work in a fundamentally different way than previous generations. Read more of this post
February 1, 2010 Leave a Comment
As discussed in the introduction to this series on the business case for collaboration, we can think about collaboration in two ways: within organizations and among organizations. In a sense, the two go hand-in-hand. Why? It’s because both have to do with people working together. For organizations to successfully work together, the people representing each organization must work together effectively on a personal level. Read more of this post
January 16, 2010 Leave a Comment
In a global economy that’s riddled with uncertainty, a few constants remain. In addition to death and taxes, business leaders can be sure to expect continued expansion into global markets, rapid advancement of how people work and do business using technology, and increasingly tough competition. So what are some potential responses to these forces by strategically minded executives?
Some businesses try to deal with uncertainty by copying what works for others. This can happen explicitly—for example, a CEO deliberately decides to offer a similar service as a competitor—or implicitly. An example of the latter might be the shared knowledge that spreads across organizations in the same industry by consultants, who may offer similar advice to different firms. Read more of this post
November 27, 2009 3 Comments
Software programs are like blue jeans. You look for something that fits, maybe try on a few different options, and finally settle on a choice. Over time, they get more and more comfortable to use. But one day you find yourself suspecting that it might be time to move on to an option that is updated, fits better, or will serve a broader range of purposes. Read more of this post
October 18, 2009 Leave a Comment
There’s a refrigerator-sized vending machine that has both traditional movie-rental chains and movie studios seeing red—both literally and figuratively. I’m referring, of course, to Redbox. And it’s Redbox, with its 15,000-plus machines (yes, they’re red) and $1 movie rentals, that’s posing the biggest threat to the traditional movie-rental chains like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster since the online rental giant Netflix hit the scene.
Here’s how it works. You simply pick out a movie using the machine’s touch-screen monitor, swipe your credit card, and take your movie from the contraption’s dispensing slot. Read more of this post
August 17, 2009 1 Comment
It’s the “American dream:” a nice house, white picket fence, two-car garage—and, of course—the family dog. Pets are an almost ubiquitous aspect of American culture. But pet overpopulation in the United States makes the euthanasia of more than 3 million dogs and cats every year a tragic necessity. And conducting animal euthanasia takes its toll on those charged with this gruesome responsibility. Read more of this post
