Commentaries

How strategic listening can engage employees in an open and realistic way

April 13, 2012

In the winning entries in a contest co-sponsored McKinsey & Company with Gary Hamel’s Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) and Harvard Business Review, the authors of seven articles reveal executive thinking on the importance of engaging employees in an open and realistic way. Source: Organization Practice To read the complete article,…

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How to put your money where your strategy is

April 13, 2012

Here is an excerpt from another outstanding article featured by The McKinsey Quarterly, published by McKinsey & Company. It was co-authored by Stephen Hall, Dan Lovallo, and Reinier Musters. Most companies allocate the same resources to the same business units year after year. That makes it…

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The four most common forms of really dumb thinking

April 12, 2012

Opinions vary about which forms are the most common and many of those opinions offer excellent examples of dumb thinking. The opinions I now share are those of several thinkers whom I personally admire. They include Plato, Aristotle, St. Paul,…

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Why Management Ideas Matter

April 12, 2012

Here is a brief excerpt from a brilliant article by posted by Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer. It is featured at the Thinkers50 website. To read the complete article and check out the wealth of resources, please click here. *…

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Preparing for what happens next is what matters most now

April 11, 2012

In his latest book, What Matters Now, Gary Hamel urges his reader to ask, “What are the fundamental, make-or-break challenges that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead?” For Hamel, five issues are paramount: o…

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Chuck Close: Practical advice from an American genius

April 10, 2012

Perhaps you saw the features on CBS Sunday Morning or the CBS This Morning programs. If not, be sure to check out the brief video (below). Chuck Close(1940-  ) is a very remarkable person. Limited by severe learning disabilities in his childhood, he was sent to…

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The 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time

April 9, 2012

Here is an excerpt from John A. Byrne’s cover article by FORTUNE magazine. Great ideas are hard to come by. Putting them to work is even harder. Byrne invites you to meet the founders who turned concepts into companies and changed the face of business.…

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For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn

April 8, 2012

As I heard the story, Ernest Hemingway (1889-1961) was in a bar and got into a loud argument (no news there) that he couldn’t compose a story with only six words. He won with these and, over the subsequent years,…

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Daniel Kahneman on “the other side of complexity”

April 6, 2012

I expect Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow to be among the most misunderstood books in recent years. A careless reading may suggest that he endorses intuition as the basis of sound judgment. In fact, he endorses enlightened intuition based…

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On the 44th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination

April 3, 2012

Thanks to The American Scholar magazine’s website, you can now experience at full-strength  “King, Kennedy, and the Power of Words.” Three videos accompany Tim Wendel’s brilliant article. First, Walter Cronkite‘s televised announcement of Dr. King’s assassination. Also on the night of…

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