MSLOC Community

Author: Kathryn Heath February 25, 2014 Shared by: Andee Weinfurter, MSLOC Student Description: Who says women don't like office politics? Just about everyone: My clients. My colleagues. My mother. The sommelier at the French restaurant I ate lunch at last weekend. They've all complained about office politics. Some women claim they are not good at it, while others simply avoid certain hot-button business situations because they think playing politics is "sleazy."

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."

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?"

Shared by Ryan Smerek, MSLOC Faculty "Public policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter made waves with her 2012 article, "Why women still can't have it all." But really, is this only a question for women? Here Slaughter expands her ideas and explains why shifts in work culture, public policy and social mores can lead to more equality - for men, women, all of us. "

Shared by Ashley Punzalan, MSLOC Student "I had an epiphany the other day. I was in the middle of marking up a memo on U.S. drone policy while simultaneously ordering a custom-decorated cake for my daughter's sixth grade musical cast party and planning my remarks for a roundtable on women in national security. Suddenly, it hit me: I hate Sheryl Sandberg. It's not because she's so rich, or because she's the COO of Facebook, or because she has gleaming, meticulously coiffed hair. True, Facebook is the Internet equivalent of Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, and my own hair will never approach the glossy perfection of Sheryl Sandberg's. I have nothing against rich people, who sometimes fund my projects or buy me lunch at fancy restaurants. Rich people, I love you!"

Author: Eleanor Barkhorn March 14, 2013 Shared by: Valencia Ray, MSLOC Student Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In is full of quotable lines: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"; "As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home"; and so on. There's one line in particular that jumped out at me and I felt compelled to follow up on: "As a man gets more successful, he is better liked by men and women, and as a woman gets more successful, she is less liked by men and women."

Author: Shane Parrish March 24, 2014 Shared by Teresa Torres, MSLOC Student How we experience the world may be as important as, or more important than the hard, objective facts about the world. This is especially true for the specific set of problems where past data or scenarios no longer seem relevant.

Author: Daniel Goleman March 12, 2014 Shared by: Justin Jacques, MSLOC Alum

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. "

March 14, 2014 By Paul Boag Shared by Tammie Green, MSLOC Alumna "If digital is just a tool in our business arsenal, then it fundamentally alters how we approach this new medium. It will even redefine what your job should be. If digital is just a tool, we might not even need Web professionals. I can tell you now that from a certain point of view they are right to criticize me. In fact, yes, at their most fundamental level, digital technologies such as the Web and mobile are just tools like any other we work with. Like electricity or the printing press, we can use these tools to achieve a business objective. For example, to persuade prospective customers to buy a product, you might get a brochure printed. This would require both the power of electricity and a printing press. Alternatively, you could build a website, send an email or create a Facebook page. Digital is just another tool in your arsenal."

Author: Dan Levy March 27, 2014 Shared by Brynn Harrington Here are some of the tips I've been using over the last decade to gather more feedback and to build a culture of feedback within my teams.

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:"

Author: Amy Gallo August 10, 2010 Shared by: Sean Radford, MSLOC Student

Kolko, Jon (2007), "Information Architecture and Design Strategy: The Importance of Synthesis during the Process of Design". In the 2007 Industrial Designers Society of America Conference proceedings.

Shared by Kim Bayma, MSLOC Student, on Twitter "The ranks of businesses that are certified B Corps are growing quickly. In 2012, when B Lab released its first annual "Best Businesses for the World" list, there were already more than 500 firms that had committed to meeting the nonprofit certifying organization's high social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency standards. By 2013, about 650 companies had achieved B Corp status, including well-known brands like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's. This year has seen even bigger growth, with a total of 970 companies across 60 industries in 32 countries committed to one goal: Redefining business "success" as being about more than just about making the biggest profit."

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?"

IDEO article about what "design sensibilities" are and how to develop them.

By Robyn Clark and Judah Kurtz (MSLOC alumnus) January 15, 2014 Coaching is a proven, effective tool for helping leaders to create a culture that fosters higher employee performance, increased engagement and retention, and enhanced business results."

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 Teresa Torres, MSLOC Student on her Product Talk blog July 12, 2012 There's been a lot of confusion around brainstorming these days. First, there was the New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer claiming that brainstorming doesn't work. Scott Berkun wrote a rebuttal arguing Lehrer's logic was flawed. Twitter exploded with comments. I'm going to try to make sense of it all.