299 Posts Found

It’s important for senior leaders to find a way that people can share information in reasonably efficient ways. I really like the example of Salesforce under Steve Greene and Chris Fry — they had a policy where engineers were free to change jobs within the company. So, every four months they’d have an internal job fair, like a bazaar with booths, where people would walk … [ Read more ]

Author: Hayagreeva Rao | Source: How Do You Scale Excellence? | Original Publication: Stanford University | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Two simple questions can help guide the process of eliminating or rewriting cumbersome policies. First, does the policy protect the organization from violating safety, legal, or regulatory standards? If the policy helps ensure compliance, leaders should still ask themselves if there is a better way to structure the policy to ensure compliance in the most efficient and effective way possible. Second, does the policy help … [ Read more ]

Author: Kannan Ramaswamy | Source: Are You Your Employees’ Worst Enemy? | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

One of the easiest and most effective programs to initiate is peer recognition. Peer recognition gives employees the power to reward each other for doing a good job. It works because employees themselves know who works hard and deserves recognition. After all, managers can’t be everywhere all the time, and employees are in the best position to catch people doing the right things.

For example, in … [ Read more ]

Author: Gregory P. Smith | Source: Reward and Recognition Programs Increase Employee Motivation | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

To minimize the “we-they” syndrome, have employees rotate jobs for one hour each week. For example, the person in the Sales Department works on the front desk. Someone from Maintenance will work in the Customer Service etc. This builds a stronger team and improves communication within the company.

Author: Gregory P. Smith | Source: Reward and Recognition Programs Increase Employee Motivation | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The creeping problem of administrative BS, committees, teams, projects and three-letter management programs all seemed important and necessary when they were initiated. And individually, each of these programs or activities appears important and valuable. However, as organizations get older and more successful, they see the need for more and more of this stuff that was just not necessary in the early lean years. There was … [ Read more ]

Author: Mark Graham Brown | Source: How to Avoid Corporate Middle-Age Spread | Original Publication: Business Finance | Subject: Management

Just as the Net Promoter approach has strong descriptive and predictive power with customers, it works just as well in the realm of employee engagement. Loyalty leaders measure engagement by asking a handful of simple but predictive questions: Would you ask your friends and family to work in this company? Why? And would you recommend our product or service to your friends and family? What … [ Read more ]

Author: Domenico Azzarello | Source: The Chemistry of Enthusiasm | Original Publication: Bain | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

“The premortem technique is a sneaky way to get people to do contrarian, devil’s advocate thinking,” explains psychologist Gary Klein. “Before a project starts, say, ‘We’re looking in a crystal ball, and this project has failed; it’s a fiasco. Now, everybody, take two minutes and write down all the reasons why you think the project has failed.”

Author: Gary Klein | Source: Taking the Bias Out of Meetings | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Measuring recurring work like processing transactions or manufacturing parts is different than measuring projects where each one is somewhat different. Sometimes, everything an organization does would be classified as a project. Because each project is slightly different, some organizations have developed a Project Management Index that includes the following submeasures: budget/cost performance, schedule/milestones met, quality/performance and innovation. At the start of each project, the four … [ Read more ]

Author: Mark Graham Brown | Source: 9 Magic Metrics Your Organization Needs to Adopt | Original Publication: Business Finance | Subject: Project Management

Heike Bruch and Jochen I. Menges make a strong argument for starting an initiative to kill initiatives in their April 2010 Harvard Business Review article “The Acceleration Trap.” Far too many “walking dead” projects clog capacity in most organizations. Once superfluous activities have been cut, leaders can allocate resources according to the priority of the remaining projects and initiatives. This requires the application of a … [ Read more ]

Author: Kannan Ramaswamy | Source: Are You Your Employees’ Worst Enemy? | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Finance, Innovation, Management

If all you do is “empower the front line” — grant your employees more freedom to wow customers — they will almost certainly strike the wrong balance between customer delight and shareholder returns. The key to success in empowering frontline employees lies in giving them a framework within which to operate — and feedback about how they are performing within that framework. Take TD Bank, … [ Read more ]

Author: Rob Markey | Source: Earn Customer Loyalty without Losing Your Shirt | Original Publication: Bain | Subject: Customer-Related

Ask participants to write down their initial positions, use voting devices, or ask participants for their “balance sheets” of pros and cons. “Frankly, I’m surprised that when you have a reasonably well-informed group it isn’t more common to begin by having everyone write their conclusions on a slip of paper,” remarks Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. “If you don’t do that, the discussion will create an … [ Read more ]

Author: Dan P. Lovallo | Source: Taking the Bias Out of Meetings | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

A fearless workplace frees people to take the risks innovation requires. At W.L. Gore, the Delaware chemical products company famous for Gore-Tex and other high-performance products, mistakes made in the pursuit of novel solutions are accepted as part of the creative process. When a project is killed, staff members celebrate its passing with beer and champagne. When a project fails, a post-mortem is conducted. Flawed … [ Read more ]

Author: Jay Rao | Source: To Innovate, Get the People Issues Right | Original Publication: Babson Insight | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Project Management

Always ask people making an investment recommendation to present their second-best choice. It’s rarely better than the first. But both might actually be good, and both recommendations of another business unit might not be. Considering just one recommendation from every business unit will deprive you of many investment opportunities you’d get if you asked for two.

Author: Dan P. Lovallo | Source: Making great decisions | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management

Accenture ran a workshop on how to improve decision-making for the CEO of a global manufacturing company and 10 of his direct reports. At the very beginning of the session, attendees were asked, “What do you do that no one else in the company has the responsibility to do?” After 30 minutes of vigorous debate failed to produce any consensus, the CEO intervened and gave … [ Read more ]

Author: Joshua Bellin | Source: Leadership Ensembles: Orchestrating the Global Company | Original Publication: Accenture | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

We typically see organizational leaders tell two types of stories to inspire their teams. The first, the turnaround story, runs along the lines of “We’re performing below industry standard and must change dramatically to survive—incremental change is not sufficient to attract investors to our underperforming company.” The second, the good-to-great story, goes something like this: “We are capable of far more, given our assets, market … [ Read more ]

Author: Susie Cranston | Source: Increasing the ‘Meaning Quotient’ of Work | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

One method is to observe customers first-hand in typical situations and encounters, known as ethnographic research. Corel does this with a program it calls “Follow Me Home” (an idea it got from Intuit); the company watches customers use its products in the comfort of their own homes. Corel’s global chief of product marketing, Jacqueline Martense, explains, “The dialogue you inspire with customers and employees is … [ Read more ]

Author: Stephen Shaw | Source: All That Should Ever Matter Is What Really Matters to Customers | Original Publication: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Customer-Related, Market Research

Office rumors can sap morale (do you think there will be layoffs?) and productivity (let’s ask everyone if they think there will be layoffs). And, of course, if everyone is talking except management, employees assume the worst. So instead of trying to stop the conversation, join it, advises Chip Heath, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Create a “Heard on … [ Read more ]

Author: Chip Heath | Source: Reining In Office Rumors | Original Publication: Inc. Magazine | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The size of your organization and the age of your workforce dictates which type of rewards and recognition program works best. One organization improved motivation and almost eliminated turnover by creating a family environment including special incentives.

Every year employees celebrate their work anniversary with a cake and receive $100 for each year employed made out in a check.

Twice a year employees’ children receive a … [ Read more ]

Author: Gregory P. Smith | Source: Reward and Recognition Programs Increase Employee Motivation | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Establish a regular review process for yourself, your team, and your organization to reflect on the reasons for both your failures and successes. This is a fundamental and critical component of learning. Based on the input of everyone involved, some organizations produce substantial documents or booklets on “lessons learned” following a major new product, service, or business launch.

Author: Jim Clemmer | Source: Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 2) | Subject: Management

E. Tory Higgins, the Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, argues that one of two states tends to dominate the way we think: a promotion focus or a prevention focus. The basic distinction is really to do with when you’re pursuing goals or making decisions. The promotion state is when you think of your goal as something to accomplish, something to aspire to; … [ Read more ]

Author: E. Tory Higgins | Source: What’s My Motivation? | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior