It is almost impossible to imagine modern business, non-profit, or government work getting accomplished, without people gathering in a seemingly endless round of meetings every day. Meetings are so much a part of our everyday work life that we rarely ever question their necessity, although we complain about their number incessantly. The only thing that [...]
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Tag Archives: change management
ARE YOU ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR JOB?
January 19, 2012
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Right-sized, down-sized, cut lose, laid off , let go, declared excess, victimized by a company’s collapse, or fired, losing one’s job — for whatever reason — is just plain AWFUL and very painful in most cases. I was involuntarily let go once. I was 19 years old and a busboy at a resort hotel in Florida. [...]
Read moreSOLVE DON’T PASS ON YOUR PROBLEMS
October 7, 2011
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I still vividly recall an early managerial faux pax of mine. I had reviewed a paper written by an esteemed colleague that I found flawed in several ways, yet I feared confronting him with my assessment because of the difference in our organizational status at the time. So I passed the product unchanged up the line [...]
Read moreCHANGE AND A SENSE OF LOSS
August 2, 2011
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A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop conducted by the current chairman emeritus and founder of the Levinson Institute — Psychologist Harry Levinson, Ph.D. — focused on the topic of organizational change. Early in my management career, the insights of Dr. Levinson contained in his monthly “Levinson Newsletter” were part [...]
Read moreTHE MANAGEMENT-STAFF RELATIONSHIP
June 3, 2011
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My motivation for writing this particular article comes from years of observing — and personally experiencing — both the good and the bad elements of the management-staff relationship. I begin with the players and note that the distinction between them is important. Managers are those in an organization who carry titles that distinguish them as [...]
Read moreSURVIVING A REGIME CHANGE
December 14, 2010
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During a recent cross-country flight, I struck up a conversation with a fellow frequent flier about our professions and the various challenges we faced. An architect who appreciates client stability from start to finish on his various projects, he told me that mid-stream regime changes were among his biggest headaches. What is the best way [...]
Read moreSTAND STILL AND STAGNATE
September 27, 2010
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A recent Businessweek article (September 24, 2010) explained the recent fall from prominence of Finland’s mobile phone manufacturer Nokia this way: “Nokia clung to the idea that mobile handsets were mainly for phoning people. That was a disastrous call”. By comparison, Apple and others had better ideas and today a whole generation would rather use a [...]
Read moreIS EVERYBODY HAPPY?
June 20, 2010
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Every manager intellectually understands that accepting his or her authority over others, means that there is no way in the world that they will be able to exercise that authority and always keep everybody happy. But knowing that is not sufficient to keep many managers from trying. It is human nature for most of us [...]
Read moreBIAS FOR ACTION IN ACTION I: WHAT & WHO
April 20, 2010
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Previously, I have suggested that one of the things the best managers know and do is to cultivate a bias for action rather than simply talking about problems, and I introduced you to a company that has combined their creative and innovative energies with just such a bias for action to become one of the best design consultancies in [...]
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