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It's time to recognize that conventional management ideas are broken - and start thinking of something better.

People tend to over-value their assets and ignore embarrassing problems. Part of the problem with Wall Street is that corporations still can't bring themselves to admit that most of the fancy derivatives and other so-called assets they are holding are worth virtually nothing. They hang on, claiming their businesses are strong and denying the truth, until it's too late and the crisis threatens to overwhelm them, one by one. It's the same with personal strengths and capabilities: people tend to over-value their abilities and underplay their weaknesses. As a result, they become complacent about what skills and experience they have and what they can achieve with them.

There's a Chinese proverb that goes something like this: "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand." Leaders should know by now that people tend to resist change when it's forced on them. "Telling" is what initiates the resistance. It causes those being told to spend their energy mostly on NOT doing what you've told them. Yet that resistance is not so much about the change; it's all about being changed.

There is a great deal that leaders can learn from Madonna and her incredible ways, including: How to deal with innovation as fashions and customer demands shift. Effective techniques to reinvent a persona and profile. How to bring a management team along with you, even as you face controversy. How to capitalize on success for the benefit of larger causes.

One of the differences between a happy and an unhappy organization is how well its structures and processes match its objectives. You can call this 'coherence' - a coherent organization is one which is organized and managed in a way that embraces its objectives, rather than just not getting in the way.

Time Management and To-Do Lists are less effective at coping with work overload I have to draw this article by Linda Stone in The Huffington Post to your notice, because it gives one of the best explanations I have come across on how to be become truly more productive in times when you simply have too much to do ("Is it Time to Retire the Never-Ending List?").

Respectfulness towards others is the key to a more civilized workplace The challenge for life at work is this: how to be a "business" person and a "human being" at the same time. How to be compete, yet cooperate; be hard-nosed, yet ethical; keep one's nose to the grindstone, yet still take time to "see" and acknowledge others; be professional, yet personal; to make a profit and yet not be greedy.

Most people try to cope with ever more demanding jobs and escalating targets by working longer hours. Sometimes it seems to be the only way, even if the impact on lives and relationships is almost wholly negative. But what if responding to workplace pressure in that way is dealing with the wrong issue - trying to manage and extend time, when what you need to be doing is managing your energy levels?