32 Posts found for Publisher: strategy+business

“Kill the Stupid Rules” is an exercise that focuses attention on non-essentials that get in everybody’s way. Most stupid rules are enshrined policies that, over time, become “how we do things around here” — that is, part of the culture. Often they’re minor but familiar irritations: expense documentation requirements, IT departments’ blocking of access to useful websites, monthly operating reports that eat up significant amounts … [ Read more ]

Author: Lisa Bodell | Source: Best Business Books 2012: Organizational Culture | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

“Kill the Company” is an exercise which asks participants to step into their competitors’ shoes and think up a detailed strategy aimed at driving their own company out of business. This is achieved by encouraging people to identify weaknesses in their company — or their business unit or division — and show how a savvy competitor could exploit them. The most useful insights surface when … [ Read more ]

Author: Lisa Bodell | Source: Best Business Books 2012: Organizational Culture | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Global manufacturer 3M has collected thousands of reviews and comments from more than a dozen retail sites and mobile apps, as well as Facebook postings, using them to improve marketing campaigns or create new ones. In one case, the company’s Precision Ultra Edge nonstick scissors were selling below expectations. 3M changed its product copy, quoting the language consumers used online (“they’re great for cutting fabric … [ Read more ]

Author: Matthew Egol | Source: The Social Life of Brands | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer-Related, Innovation, Market Research, Marketing / Sales

When Chip Bergh was made President and CEO of Levi Strauss, he spent the first month mostly listening. He came up with a set of standard questions: What three things must we preserve? What three things must we change? What do you most hope I will do? What are you most concerned I might do? What advice do you have for me? He sent the … [ Read more ]

Author: Chip Bergh | Source: Navigating the First Year: Advice from 18 Chief Executives | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Improvement

HCL delivers detailed financial performance data broken out by business unit regularly to employees’ desktops. This has stimulated employees to ask more questions, volunteer more ideas, and challenge their managers more often. In turn, everyone is making better decisions — the kind of decisions that directly affect the customer’s experience. Similarly, in a bold twist on the 360-degree employee appraisal tool, all appraisals are posted … [ Read more ]

Author: Vineet Nayar | Source: The Thought Leader Interview: Vineet Nayar | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Formerly, when operational people in the business units at Devon Energy did a search for a new employee, HR would hand them a list of candidates. It would be their job to decide which candidates to see and to sell the candidates on Devon.

Now, we in HR sit down with the business leader and talk about the need, and the strategy to fill the need. … [ Read more ]

Source: Talent Is a Strategic Asset: A Virtual Roundtable | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources

Several studies have shown that when groups fail to arrive at decisions, it’s often because they devote too much time to finding common ground rather than weighing the pros and cons of what each person is saying. Meetings are especially ineffective when attendees begin by disclosing which way they are leaning; upon voicing an opinion about a decision, people are more likely to ignore information … [ Read more ]

Author: Matt Palmquist | Source: Listen First, Comment Later | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Looking back at past forecasts and their realizations can help prevent overconfidence and suggest places where unexpected factors may emerge. Recently, researchers Victor Jose, Bob Nau, and Bob Winkler at Duke University proposed new rules to score and reward good forecasts. An effective “scoring rule” provides incentives to discourage the forecaster from sandbagging, a proverbial problem in corporate life. For example, Gap Inc. measures the … [ Read more ]

Author: Tim Laseter | Source: Cleaning the Crystal Ball | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subject: Management

An example of a metric that matters is return on innovation investment (ROI²). A series of Booz & Company studies conducted over the past seven years statistically correlates ROI² with organic growth, and links innovation spending with financial performance in ways that can lead decision makers to generate higher, more reliable returns on innovation and research and development. The statistical validity of ROI² bolsters its … [ Read more ]

Author: Jamie Campbell | Source: Crafting Best-in-Class Business Intelligence | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation

Henry Chidgey, who once ran several railroad and diamond companies, advocates monthly performance reviews. These reviews need not and should not be complex; they work best when kept extremely simple. Maximum accountability is the main goal.

Here’s how the process works. The day before meeting, your coworker brings you a list of five or six key objectives, detailing her progress on each. During the … [ Read more ]

Author: Gary B. Cohen | Source: Author’s Choice: Performance Reviews on Steroids | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

The way a company approaches downsizing can make or break its performance. Using 355 undergraduates as their sample, the authors randomly assigned five-person teams to work on military-based command-and-control simulations. The teams’ performance was gauged first at full strength in control groups and then after one of three separate downsizing approaches was applied to the same groups.

The first approach was to maintain the hierarchy, eliminating … [ Read more ]

Author: D. Scott DeRue | Source: How Different Team Downsizing Approaches Influence Team-Level Adaptation and Performance | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Intel monitors changing skill requirements and institutes a redeployment program when it becomes necessary to downsize a business. Under this program, managers effectively lay off people, and the head count of the business unit is moved off the payroll. These excised people enter a redeployment pool under the auspices of human resources. Once in the pool, employees generally have four to six months, and can … [ Read more ]

Author: Bruce A. Pasternack | Source: The Triumph of People Power and the New Economy | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subject: Human Resources