Category: Organisation Behaviour
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Conformity and Submission to Authority (“Willful Blindness”)
I am sitting in the auditorium at IESE Business School listening to Margaret Heffernan speak about her book “Willful Blindness”. She is a wonderful speaker, sharing both clear framework of ideas and specific personal experiences. I have scribbled about 5 pages of notes on her material, but will limit this blog post to discuss two…
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10 Rules to Look Like you are Working Hard
Sometimes I want a lazy day. Sometimes I don’t feel like producing good work. I often blog about productivity, about removing purposeless-busy-ness from our lives; but sometimes I don’t car and I want to give the impression that I am really working hard. Here are 10 golden rules for looking like you are working hard:…
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10 Things we Hate about Bosses
10 things that employees surveyed last year by the Great Place to Work organisation said contributed to poor management: Lack of Recognition and Appreciation – employees who believe that managers do not really appreciate the work, energy and effort put in during their days and sometimes evenings Poor Communication – employees want to find out…
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Twelve True Traits of Transformational Leadership
Let Go of Things Others Can Do – Avoid busy-ness as a sign of productivity Encourage Initiative – Allow falling-forward-failure, Destroy comfort-zone; The Institutional Yes Direction and Discipline – Ensure people have goals and know how they are doing Excruciating Accountability – hold themselves and others to clear process goals (under own control) Focus – Don’t dilute energy;…
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The 4 Paths of our Working Life
My last post was on Meaningful Contribution. I talked about three questions about the work you are doing: does it serve others? do you do it well? and do you love doing it? The 4 Paths in our Working Life Taking two of those questions: does it serve others? and do you love doing it?…
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Amazon Staff Meetings: “No Powerpoint”
“We have study hall at the beginning of our meetings.” says Jeff Bezos. Staff meetings at Amazon begin with 30 minutes of silent reading. Powerpoint is easy for presenter, hard for audience “The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation. Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a powerpoint…
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The Single Most Important aspect of High Performing Teams
“How do you create a happy environment?”“Simple. I removed all the unhappy people.” I can’t remember who said this, but it rings true to me. To get the hot air balloon higher, it is simpler to remove the lead weights than to pump more hot air into the balloon canopy. Single most important aspect: Remove…
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3 types of Dangerous People
The 3 types of Dangerous People Micheal Maddock writes about 3 types of people to fire immediately. This applies beyond the world of entrepreneurs and work teams. It applies in all of life. Victims – they want the problems. Critics – they won’t and they don’t want you to either. Know-it-Alls – they refuse to…
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6 Competencies for the Future of Labor
According to the report “Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers’ Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce“, the top 6 competencies for success in the labor market today are: Networking – connecting to people and sharing your and their goals (Networking in 7 simple…