The jury is still out. But read this interesting exchange on NYTimes.com. Rember that just because on average women may be different than men, this does not mean that it is true for the person in front of you. Susan Pinker: Whether we’re talking about mentoring, managing or office politics, the research is clear: “Men… More »
My Notes — Management
April 2, 2009 · Management Teaching
CEO Q&A: Bernie Brooks
Chief executive, Meyer (Australia) What is your number-one tip for managing people? You never get in trouble for over-communicating with them. What is your number-one tip for managing a business? Give the team more responsibility than they expect and measure everything in the business that can be measured. A lesson you have never forgotten? How… More »
February 18, 2009 · Management Teaching
GE’ s Jeff Immelt refuses bonus for 2008
Very few executives have taken the step to cut their own bonuses when stockholder make big losses. Reading the national mood and the outcry over Wall Street bonus payments when the bank are bailed out by taxpayers, Jeffrey Immelt demonstrated leadership by refusing a bonus for 2008. General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt… More »
November 26, 2008 · Management Teaching
Radical Rethinking of Cash Management
The Economist summarizes the profound implications of the financial crisis for the management of cash in firms.
SELDOM has corporate strategy been turned on its head so quickly. Barely a year ago, cash was a dangerous thing to accumulate: activist investors stalked companies, urging boards to return it to investors, to pay special dividends or to buy back shares. Ever since the 1980s the fashion had been to make companies as lean as possible, outsourcing all but your core competencies, expanding your just-in-time supplier system around the globe, loading up with debt to “leverage” your balance-sheet. Old-style defensive conglomerates, such as Arnold Weinstock’s General Electric Company, were dismantled. Companies that hoarded cash—even ones as good as Toyota and Microsoft—were viewed with suspicion.
Management Wisdom Courtesy of Jeff Pfefer
Jeff Pfeffer has spent the past twenty years figuring out what management ideas have some systematic data behind them and what ideas are make for a good story but are simply wrong. Guy Kawasaki (who wrote a fantastic little book on entreprepreurship, The Art of the Start, which I am using in one of my… More »
August 21, 2007 · Management Teaching
Introducing the Meeting Meter?
Are you participating in too many meetings? Are these meetings too long? Time is money and group time costs much more money than the time of a single person. With the Meeting Meter™ you can develop an agenda and calculate the true cost of meetings while they take place. The Meeting Meter™ is a simple… More »
November 14, 2005 · Management Teaching
The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management
One of the things that made Peter Drucker such a superb writer on management was his intense and wide ranging curiosity about everything in the world and his keen eye for the essential aspects of reality. Unlike many other people who paid with their life for not wanting to see reality, Drucker, for example, extrapolated from what Hitler had said in the years before becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and left for England the moment Hitler rose to power. Drucker died a few days ago at age 95, but many of his insights are as valid as ever. Drucker’s writings have been edited into one book a few years ago, which is available electronically on Kindle. The value of the book lies not so much in giving concrete instructions about what you should do as a manger but in making you think about your own situation. Here are some of the key insights, the foremost being that management is about human beings.
June 23, 2005 · Management Teaching
Five Tips for Strategies for Organizational Change courtesy of Motorola’s New CEO
Tip 1: Don't go too fast. Recognize it can take several years to build a high-performance company. Tip 2: Get back to putting the customer first. As simple as that sounds, companies take it for granted. Tip 3: Don't let your sales force take no for an answer. They should tell clients: 'Talk to my… More »
May 22, 2005 · Management Research
How Business Schools Lost their Way
Warren Bennis and James O’Toole just published an article in the Harvard Business Review that I wholeheartedly agree with. It is very fun to read because they are well-informed and don’t shy away from stating some unpleasant truths. Good business schools have room for theoreticians, scientific empiricists, and practice oriented scholars.
January 24, 2005 · Management Teaching
What Companies do to Make Life Easier for Their Employees
The WSJ in today’s report on leadership published an interesting article on what kind of perks companies provide to boost the morale of people and to make work life easier. “Fun perks didn’t end with the dot-com bust. They just changed,” reports Jennifer Saranow.
Read the full article on WSJ.com.