Monthly Archives: December 2008
Is Malcolm Gladwell stating the obvious?
Malcolm Gladwell has been over to London, talking about his new book, The Outliers. I haven’t read the book and I’ve only scanned the reviews, but the talent management component of the message seems to be that; Outliers focuses more … Continue reading
Values go beyond ‘what you can get away with’
According to Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC Holdings; Values go beyond ‘what you can get away with’ and that values are, in the end, critical to value – to sustainable value, that is Green goes on to say; “For companies, … Continue reading
Four Dimensions of Leadership
Nick McCormick very kindly sugested a podcast with himself on management tips. We had a good chat about some thoughts on leadership and spent about 10 minutes talking about; Self Awareness Relationships Systems Culture I spoke a bit more about … Continue reading
Better returns from Talent Management
Michael Spect points us to an article and interview he did with Kate Carruthers. I’ve added some extracts from the piece below; A fragmented approach to the elements comprising workforce development led to lack of integration and inability to align … Continue reading
Reshaping an organisation’s social structure
Gary Cokins highlights some recent Dutch research that suggests; overall enterprise performance is improved by defining accountability for sales turnover and profit and loss simultaneously over multiple dimensions (e.g., by product, region, account, market segment, industry). This “multidimensional” concept means … Continue reading
HR – Boom or Bust?
Summary Commentators are currently polarised around the future of the HR function. Some suggest that the function is about to enter a boom period as after several years of cajoling, organisations are placing far greater significance on talent management and … Continue reading
GM’s problems are best described as suicide rather than homicide
While Bob Sutton knows GM very well (research, speaker, existing contacts there), he can’t stop himself from feeling compelled to speak his mind. Here are some extracts from his piece; I am ambivalent about whether the auto industry should receive … Continue reading
Innovation and integration are unnatural acts
While this isn’t a Carry On film, Oliver Marks says that In lots of large corporations, innovation and integration are unnatural acts. Silos block cross functional cooperation and resistance stifles new ideas and concepts. A piece in HBR then “explores … Continue reading
Organisational structure predicts software quality
Philip Preissing talks about some fascinating research from Microsoft in which the outcome of software projects reflects and is very heavily influenced by the organisational structure in which they were conceived and developed. Building in part on Conway’s Law, a … Continue reading