integrative thinking

Flex: A book review by Bob Morris

April 7, 2014

Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee HarperBusiness/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2014) Invaluable information, insights, and counsel with regard to how to become and help others to become a “fluent leader” According…

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Left Brain, Right Stuff: A book review by Bob Morris

January 28, 2014

Left Brain, Right Stuff: How Leaders Make Winning Decisions Phil Rosenzweig PublicAffairs (2014) Why understanding the decision making process as well as the roles of action and analysis “can improve the odds of success” As I began to read this…

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Big Bang Disruption: A book review by Bob Morris

January 13, 2014

Big Bang Disruption: Business Survival in the Age of Constant Innovation Larry Downes and Paul Nunes Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2014) About these highly disruptive innovations: There’s some really great news and there’s also some really terrible news…. Those who have…

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Playing to Win: A book review by Bob Morris

February 17, 2013

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin Harvard Business Review Press (2013) “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” Michael Porter I am pleased that A.G. Lafley has co-authored another book, with…

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The Talent Masters: A book review by Bob Morris

January 22, 2013

The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers Bill Conaty and Ram Charan Crown Business (2010) I agree with Conaty and Charan that Steve Jobs is the archetypical “talent master.” Few others possess his combination of intelligence, temperament,…

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The power of allophilia

January 2, 2013

In the Introduction to Crossing the Divide, published by Harvard University Press (2009), Todd L. Pittinsky explains that allophilia is “a term for positive feelings of kinship, comfort, affection, engagement, and enthusiasm concerning members of a group different from one’s…

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Michael Michalko on how to “crack the barriers to creativity”

August 30, 2012

I read Michael Michalko’s first book, Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, when it was published in 1998 by Ten Speed Press. According to Michalko, how best to “crack  the barriers to human creativity”? Here are his suggestions, accompanied by my annotations. o…

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Us + Them: A book review by Bob Morris

August 20, 2012

Us + Them: Tapping the Positive Power of Difference Todd L. Pittinsky Harvard Business Review Press (2012) How and why “the power of difference” can help us to replace negative “Us-and-Them” relations with positive ones As I began to read…

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Mergers & Acquisitions Integration Handbook: A book review by Bob Morris

July 10, 2012

Mergers & Acquisitions Integration Handbook:  Helping Companies Realize the Full Value of Acquisitions Scott C. Whitaker John Wiley & Sons (2012) How to combine, consolidate, and integrate resources effectively Most mergers and acquisitions either fail or fall far short of…

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