Group items tagged

By Bea La O', MSLOC 2014 Capstone Research "This study seeks to understand how managers make strategic decisions through the lens of three approaches proffered by Mintzberg and Westley (2001): "think-first," procedural rationality, "see-first," insight and intuition, and "do-first," sensemaking. Through interviews with six leaders on strategic decision issues that range from changing the growth strategy of a large healthcare firm to redefining the talent management framework of a large quick service restaurant company, the study finds managers switch between the three approaches over the course of considering a decision issue. It also finds managers manage the inherent tension between "thinking-first," "seeing-first," and "doing-first," and socialize decision issues with stakeholders using "think-first," procedural rationality, and "do-first," sensemaking. "

Shared by Brynn Harrington, MSLOC alumna, on Twitter "Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager. Yet our analysis suggests that they usually get it wrong. In fact, Gallup finds that companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time. Bad managers cost businesses billions of dollars each year, and having too many of them can bring down a company. The only defense against this massive problem is a good offense, because when companies get these decisions wrong, nothing fixes it. Businesses that get it right, however, and hire managers based on talent will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage."

Results from 2013 survey of change management success, reasons for failure.

Shared by Maggie Lewis, MSLOC Instructor and Alumna "Culture is critically important to business success around the world. That was the response from an overwhelming 84 percent of the more than 2,200 participants in our 2013 Culture and Change Management Survey. The survey, conducted by the Katzenbach Center at Booz & Company, was undertaken to better understand global perceptions of culture, its impact on change, and the main barriers to successful, sustainable transformation. In addition to culture's critical role in the overall success of an organization, survey responses suggest strong correlations between the success of change programs and whether culture was leveraged in the change process. Our findings point to using a holistic, culture-oriented approach to change for the best results. Despite its critical role, however, there is a disparity between the way culture is seen by companies and the way it is treated. Less than half of participants report that their companies effectively manage culture, and more than half say a major culture overhaul is needed. How can companies close this gap, and begin to effectively leverage the power of culture to achieve more sustainable transformations?"

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It's their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives-consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees' inner work lives. But it's forward momentum in meaningful work-progress-that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts-events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy-and (2) nourishers-interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people's performance. Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and a Director of Research at Harvard Business School. Michelle Bavester, MSLOC student recommends this book. She says: "The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile? Her book has a checklist of sorts for making work meaningful and igniting engagement in employees. There's a lot of real-life examples from her research that she uses to illustrate her points as well. It's a great read!"

March 28, 2014 By Torben Rick Shared by Sandy Schwan, MSLOC alumna "Organisations must become increasingly able to change quickly and easily. The business must be flexible yet capable of implementing and sustaining organisational change. Deciding what to change is one thing. Making changes stick is another. To improve your odds, use this change management checklist:"

Written by Peggy Troyer, MSLOC Alumna March 18, 2014 "One of my responsibilities, as my company's Human Resource Partner, is to help managers make the right decisions on how they should reward their employees during our annual compensation review cycle. Over the years, a common assumption my managers may come to me for advice is, "How could anyone stay motivated to work if I don't give them a raise? Everyone must get something or they will surely leave." Is there more to a job than just money? Lately the people who have been awarded 5-8% pay increases have been the ones to leave our organization. In one recent exit interview, a high-performing employee said, "For some reason, I get paid exceedingly well for what I do, and though it was nice, I just didn't understand why the company won't use the money to hire more help." Interestingly, why do people still make the decision to stay with an organization after receiving no increase, while others leave after receiving an 11% increase in compensation and rave reviews?"

In This Issue Think Differently: How can organizations prepare change leaders for VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity)? Community Buzz - The power of being mindful in the workplace - Talent Management: Looking beyond the resume MSLOC Community Snapshots - People on the Move

In This Issue Think Differently: How can organizations prepare change leaders for VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity)? Community Buzz - The power of being mindful in the workplace - Talent Management: Looking beyond the resume MSLOC Community Snapshots - People on the Move

By Marshall Moore February 18, 2014 Shared by Kelly Ross, MSLOC alumnae and MSLOC Coach in the Organizational and Leadership Coaching Certification program. "Good coaches get results, respect, and awards-just ask the three managers recently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But what makes a coach or mentor good? One school of thought says they should hold their mentees to specific performance benchmarks and help them reach those benchmarks by targeting their personal weaknesses. Popofatticus But new research suggests a different tack-namely, to nurture a mentee's strengths, aspirations for the future, and goals for personal growth. Indeed, studies suggest that this positive approach is more effective at helping people learn and change; for instance, it helps train business school students to be better managers, and it is more effective at getting patients to comply with doctors' orders."

Author: Nicole Carter Date: March 11, 2014 Shared by: Andee Weinfurter Description: It's the fourth day of SXSW Interactive, and though the throngs of geeks and enthusiasts are getting tired, it didn't stop a handful of them from lining up to see Patricia Korth-McDonnell, partner and managing director of design firm Huge, talk about chaos and creativity.

Gallup Business Journal by Robyn Reilly January 7, 2014 Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Managers everywhere can help solve this problem -- and reap the benefits of higher employee engagement. Shared by Sonya Perez-Lauterbach, MSLOC student via Twitter

By Art Kleiner in strategy+business | booz&co. March 11, 2014 Shared by Eric Fridman, MSLOC Student "The idea of using mindfulness as a guide to better business practices has taken on such currency as a management fad lately that it already has a detractor: The New Republic's Silicon Valley curmudgeon, Evgeny Morozov. Known for his skepticism about Internet-fueled democracy, Morozov has penned a new article called "The Mindfulness Racket," in which he claims that workplace meditation-the leading edge of the fad-is a weak substitute for the substantial change that businesses really need. "

Author: Matt Palmquist April 9, 2014 Shared by: Andee Weinfurter, MSLOC student Bottom Line: Companies gain a competitive advantage when different divisions, such as sales and marketing, share non-quantifiable information. But to support the flow of this all-important tacit knowledge, managers must encourage social ties and cross-functional relationships.

Written by MSLOC alumna Tracey Wik May 28, 2014 Using the language of business - standardized processes, measures and reporting - will go a long way to transform management of learning functions.

Description of the types of organizational change

Using meditation in the classroom to improve focus. Summarizes research on multi-tasking with technology. Includes reading recommendations.

By Aliah D. Wright in SHRM MSLOC alumnus, Judah Kurtz, is quoted in this article. Embrace the Inevitable For any of this to work, companies are going to have to take a leap of faith and embrace working in new ways. "To communicate more extensively and effectively, embracing technology inside the enterprise to leverage that is going to become that much more essential," said Judah Kurtz, senior manager of the talent solutions practice and an executive coach in the executive coaching practice at BPI group in Chicago. "If you can understand the knowledge and expertise of people throughout the organization … [they] are the ones who are going to be able to share information and documents and best practices and data or whatever ends up becoming an opportunity for us to have this back-and-forth dialogue," he said. Experts say that's when the real benefits begin.

By Eric Jaffe Shared by Keeley Sorokti, MSLOC alumna "By now we're all familiar with the stereotypes of different generations in the workplace. Boomers are workaholics who respect authority and have a lifelong loyalty to their company. Generation X employees prize a work-life balance. Millennials float from job to job and flaunt managerial authority and are too busy texting to care what you think of that. Given the popular consensus about office generational gaps--and the abundance of advice columns on bridging them--you'd think evidence for these traits would be strong. That's not at all the case, says management scholar John Bret Becton of University of Southern Mississippi. "We're always looking for a reason why people are different," Becton tells Co.Design. "But at least half of the research shows there's really not a lot of difference.""

March 2, 2014 Shared by Keeley Sorokti, MSLOC alumna "Over the last few years, there has been an enormous amount of industry discussion about how the digital world is changing the way we work. To any reasonable observer, the ways that we communicate, interact, and collaborate with each other are all in the midst of profound change. At least the why seems fairly clear. At at high level, there appear to be three major root causes for why collaboration - the very core of how people come together and function as a business - is in the midst of reinvention: Hierarchical management styles break down in the face of the inherent complexity and scale of the modern business environment. New digital tools have put us in constant and direct contact with nearly every person in the developed world at virtually no cost or effort. Thus businesses are now primarily subject to the power laws of networks, rather than the legacy rules of business. There has been a sustained shift in the power of creation, as the edges of our organizations and marketplaces now have readily in hand as much - and often more - productive power and reach than our institutions. The obvious cause is today's pervasive global platforms for self-expression (yes, by this I largely mean social media, but also all forms of digital connectedness.)"

By Beth Kuhel March 8, 2014 "If you want to get hired and stay hired you need to know how hiring managers think. Since Google is setting the standard for attracting, hiring (and paying) top talent, examining and understanding their hiring standards and practices could help you even if you have no interest in working there."