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Organizations don’t change, people change

Organization Behavior July 30, 2010

Organizations are, quite simply, made up of social interactions: groups of people. Organizations will not change if people do not change. There is no such thing as organization change, they don’t change, people change. All change: transformation, business process reengineering, technology implementation, mergers & acquisitions, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning or, if you [...]

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Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

Organization Behavior July 23, 2010

An intervention. Interventions are principal learning processes in the “action” stage of organization development (OD)*. An intervention is what people outside organization development [namely the majority of all professionals are NOT in organization development] call a project or transformation. The reason a professional might call for an intervention, or project, can easily be identified as [...]

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Organization development is business growth

Organization Behavior July 19, 2010

Organization development has yet to earn a role in all organizations. Only the most progressive companies even have an organization development role, staff, department, or group. The challenge to organization development success is that it is hard to find a linear trajectory for success. Organization development may have clear goals, but the reality, there is rarely [...]

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Media’s two tribes – Rupert Murdoch’s Wall

Odds & Sods July 16, 2010

In a follow up to July 12th’s post Media’s two tribes – charging for content Atlantic Monthly’s James Fallows reports The Times of London has placed their bet you will love their headlines so much you will pay for the opportunity to read the article. Click on any link within The Times and you are [...]

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Media’s two tribes – charging for content

Marketing July 12, 2010

The lines are drawn: charge for content, give content for free. In Media’s two tribes The Economist breaks down the thought of charging for premium content over giving content away. In this article from The Economist, read about what 2 UK media outlets weigh in their chosen strategy as well a look at some of the [...]

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Venture Capital and the descent into irrelevance

Portfolio Planning July 9, 2010

The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Elemental finance: you assume the amount of risk suitable for an expected payoff. You assume bigger risk and its bigger payoff with the full caveat that there is an equally big downside loss that could happen. Invest in a money market and get slow, steady, decimal-point-% returns; [...]

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This social media fad will ruin organization development

Talent Management July 8, 2010

What does the social media fad have to do with business? How is this social media fad related to organizational development (organization development)? Are you asking yourself if you really need to bother learning about social media? I’ve heard it all too often and continue to cringe hearing about the lack of effort OD and [...]

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How do you measure innovation: tax revenue

Odds & Sods July 6, 2010

When we talk innovation, innovation is usually connected to a firm or a region. Interest with innovation at the regional level is usually couched in economic development. So, what is economic development other than politicians, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and glad-handing photo-ops? Why are so many incentive packages being offered? Tax havens being offered? Tax holidays? Who [...]

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The maven or the laggard – Clive Thompson’s view

Marketing July 3, 2010

Those early market adopters, the techno-weenies that stood in line for the iPhone 4, they represent only about 13.5% of the potential market. It seems many consumer and technology products look for the big Apple splash as a sign of cool, hip, and success. These early adopters are people who play on the what is [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 2

Portfolio Planning July 2, 2010

The key for organizations to grow and to thrive relies on how to manage projects and how to manage projects for organization success becomes an industry competitive advantage. But why do so many projects fail? Is it lack of preparation? Is it lack of communication? Is it lack of commitment? No, those are symptoms. Projects [...]

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Can you engineer regional innovation clusters?

Odds & Sods July 1, 2010

Innovation comes from opportunity and diversity. Can diversity and innovation be engineered? We all see the newspaper pronouncements of local, state, or federal tax incentives to draw investors and to build innovation clusters . The key for clusters to succeed is for clusters to cultivate of high, value-add industries and supply chains as well as [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; impact analysis template

Portfolio Planning June 29, 2010

On my previous post, Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success that included the eBook Scope – Kills Bad Breath and Kills Projects [link below] I introduced the importance of scope before a project launches. The numbers on project failure are sobering: 90% of all projects fail and this post follows up both the [...]

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Human capital risk, now that’s real risk

Portfolio Planning June 24, 2010

You commonly hear an equity firm or VC partner claim, we invest in the people and when it comes to costs, human capital usually represents nearly 70% of all operating costs. Human capital risk is the real risk, but most investment firms don’t focus investment decisions and deal valuation not on quantifying the people or [...]

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Too many links, a pause for delinkification

Marketing June 21, 2010

A couple recent articles around author Nicholas Carr’s writings and thoughts present a negative symptom of hyperlinks, mainly, reduced reader comprehension. Too many hyperlinks or links negatively effect our ability to process and understand. Mr. Carr’s call? Delinkification. Is hyperlinking a hyper waste? Search engine optimization (SEO) aside, for the moment, the whole goal of [...]

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It’s true, your boss is a psychopath – UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE?

Odds & Sods June 20, 2010

From the weekly, always insightful, Boston Globe Ideas Section, I give you this week’s UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE [their capitalization, not mine]. This section usually provides a hodge-podge of nuggets from the social sciences. This week’s lead: It’s true, your boss is a psychopath Watching the news some days, you’d think a lot of companies were run by [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 1

Portfolio Planning June 18, 2010

Organizations rely on projects to remain competitive. Projects are the way organizations deliver and realize their executive strategies. The ability to deliver a project is the ability to compete. Scope kills projects and projects that are not delivered kill organizations. Scope is one of the most important ways to manage project success. And when projects [...]

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The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered – 3 Views

Talent Management June 14, 2010

This morning I read something that made me hold my, very hot, coffee in my mouth longer than I expected as I processed their information. Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post reports “Disturbing Job Ads: The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered“. Ms. Bassett comments on a job board search for quality engineer that notes states: [...]

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Low risk, low return human resources

Talent Management June 11, 2010

My 11-odd-years in business and talent management consulting [the other 9 in marketing] have shown a few disturbing trends that I see from most poorly-run companies. These type of organizations, across all industries, ascribe to, what they believe is a low risk strategy, but in reality it is a low return strategy for human resources: [...]

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5 reasons human resources hurt consumer brands

Marketing June 9, 2010

Every person connected to your organization is in sales and marketing. Each interaction anyone connected to your company, your government agency, your non-profit, or your university has with the anyone is an interaction with your brand. Every interaction with a vendor, supplier, or competitor is as important as an interaction with a potential customer. At [...]

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