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Archive for the 'management' Category

This is one of my favorite idea bites. I’ve truncated a long section of McSwain’s work to make it bite-sized. The paper it was taken from, A Transformational Theory of Organizations, is one of my all-time favorites. It actually served to put me on the hunt for new paradigms in organizational theorizing.
The baseline goal that […]

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In fact, the real cause of this so-called turbulence may be planning itself, which by imposing formalized procedures on organizations has desensitized them and made them vulnerable to unexpected changes. — Put it more boldly, if your organization has formal plans but no vision, and if you then try to control your future so rigidly […]

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Specifically, I would suggest that the effective organization is garrulous, clumsy, superstitious, hypocritical, monstrous, octopoid, wandering, and grouchy.
Karl Weick
On Re-Punctuating the Problem
in New Perspectives on Organizational Effectiveness; Jossey-Bass 1977

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Love and power are not opponents; it is our ideas that have constructed them so. — The resolution of this tiresome conflict between power and love requires but one simple test, a move from the singular to the plural. Just add an s. The world is not one world, power is not a single idea, […]

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Workers must no longer be considered as cost factors to be “compressed” or “rationalized” but as allies to be won. — …managers must forfeit their long-cherished and, at times abusive, privileges to move toward a new form of organization centered on the human being as well as on a flexible and creative approach. — This […]

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The stereotypes are of “real masculinity” being equated with domination, conquest, and control -and thus also with “heroic” male violence. And such sterotypes are essential for the maintenance of a top-down model of social organization.— She [Sally Helgesen] shows how the workplaces run by these women tend to be more like “webs of inclusion” rather […]

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If an organization is narrow in the images that it directs toward its own actions, then when it examines what it has said, it will see only bland displays. This means in turn that the organization won’t be able to make much interesting sense of what’s going on or of its place in it. That’s […]

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Heather Mundell writes a blog on career development. Via her life@work I came upon a new blog by veteran bizblogger Curt Rosengren, M.A.P. Creating Meaning, Abundance, and Passion, and read:
A no-brainer part of any system designed to help you maintain your momentum is the simple question, “What motivates me?”
Ahh…motivation…a subject of interest for me recently. […]

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Though staff may indeed be as valuable as bosses make out, corporate structures and attitudes are seldom sufficiently flexible to accommodate and profit from individuality. — It is no longer possible either to create or continue to sustain a monolithic culture in any large organization. Nor is it better to succumb to the tyranny of […]

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If an organization is narrow in the images that it directs toward its own actions, then when it examines what it has said, it will see only bland displays. This means in turn that the organization won’t be able to make much interesting sense of what’s going on or of its place in it. That’s […]

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Several captures from the old web site. Subject: organizational oceanography! Weick and Mintzberg are two of my main guys.
Specifically, I would suggest that the effective organization is garrulous, clumsy, superstitious, hypocritical, monstrous, octopoid, wandering, and grouchy.
Karl Weick
On Re-Punctuating the Problem
in New Perspectives on Organizational Effectiveness; Jossey-Bass 1977
In fact, the real cause of this so-called turbulence […]

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Karl Weick is one of my main guys. The Social Psychology of Organizing and Sensemaking In Organizations are deservedly classics but each of his books are terrific. Anyway…in the aftermath of the earlier MAZE THE COURSE post, the following excerpts from an interview Dr. Weick gave in 2003 are timely. Incidentally, he’s speaking here of […]

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Mark Schenk, writing at Anecdote | If you can’t measure it…
I recently heard a presentation that mentioned the truism ‘if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it’. It reminded me of how uncomfortable I have always been with this statement and the way it gets touted like a mantra in some organisations. If we […]

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In synch with yesterday’s post, I note today Dr. Kets De Vries’s article, Reaping the Whirlwind:Managing Creative People (pdf:2000; INSEAD) is available on the web.

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Steve Hardy at Creative Generalist has done a valuable capture from Caterina, in turn captured from a presentation by Intuit’s Keoki Andrus. Moreover, comments to the post of origin elaborate a fuller itemization. Here’s two of the lists compiled by Steve.
Seven Deadly Deficiencies
1. Contempt for others
2. Obsession with self
3. Commitment dysfunction
4. Inflexible mindset
5. No productive […]

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Patti Anklam, as is her marvelous way, weaves valuable threads leading to thought provoking places.
“Virtual” is a funny word for me right now, as I’m deep into writing Net Work, and the distinction virtual works for online communities as well as distributed communities, but there’s a difference and I’ve not yet found the right pair […]

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Wow. Value Based Management.net is a goldmine. Almost every resource is linked internally to pithy descriptions of conceptual and methodological frameworks. The amount of material is overwhelming. The search engine allows me to note important omissions, such as no no mention of Appreciative Inquiry, but, with a jungle so amazonian, so what?

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In fleshing out the squareONE links page important thinkers on the periphery of experiential learning theory demand highlighting. Weick, who’s methodology of sensemaking is experiential remains a central influence to my own ‘galumphing,’ (a Weickian term for exploration). His book is an accessible, thought-provoking inquiry. As was the follow-up, .
Henry Mintzberg stands a bit […]

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Although I have no experience working in large or even middling small businesses, the question of leadership, what it is, and what it concerns, and how it is to be developed, arises through my interest in organizational development and professional development practices. (Leadership is germane to entrepreneurial businesses too, but entrepreneurs aren’t very often very […]

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