Tag Archives: leadership

Systems thinking for middle managers: workplace democracy in action.

As middle manager, I have been thinking a lot about how I do my job. As a colleague explained to me, “We are the jam in the sandwich.”  I liked the idea because it shows a central, sweet, and connective … Continue reading

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Need to improve your customer service? Have your Chief Executive sign the complaint responses

Sometimes you have trouble with customer service. Try as you might, you cannot find a way to improve it. What may exist is a gap between the senior management and the frontlines regarding customer service. In many ways, the senior … Continue reading

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What you allow to interrupt you defines your priorities

We often hear management gurus advising us that effective and successful leaders know how to prioritise their work and the work of their company. To an extent, they are correct. What is left unsaid and not discussed is how those … Continue reading

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Do corporate integrity programmes work or does culture eat them too?

  The Barclays fine for the LIBOR scandal and Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK)’s massive fine by regulators raises the question whether corporate integrity programmes work. All major firms have the programmes in some form either as a corporate social responsibility programme or as an … Continue reading

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Leadership is not a conversation

Despite the claims of Groysberg and Slind at Harvard Business Review, leadership is not a conversation because staff do not listen. The staff do not listen because what is being presented as a “conversation” or a “dialogue” is instead a … Continue reading

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Why change Management is hard: sometimes you have to make the bricks

When people talk about change management, they often focus on large issues, like strategy, vision, and culture.  All of these are important to setting the goals for the change management programme.  Yet, what is often overlooked is the mechanics of … Continue reading

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Good Corporate Citizen or Good Person: check your ethics at the door?

With the recent financial crisis hitting the world, there have been a several attempts to understand what went wrong with the system.  A financial and economic system that delivered staggeringly good results and provided economic benefits to billions of people … Continue reading

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Public resignations do these change a corporate culture?

You chafe under an organisational hierarchy seemingly focused on the wrong goals, or behaviour, or even potentially criminal activity, and you dream that you can change it through a bold personal act.  For some, it will be a report to … Continue reading

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Monologue vs. dialogue: The myth that governments need more or better communication.

There is an on-going myth within social media circles that governments need more and better communication.  The problem is that this is not true. Governments spend a large amount of time and money communicating with the public. They have annual … Continue reading

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If you discipline staff more than you promote them, is it time to rethink your HR policy?

An organisation’s policies and rules show the internal culture. If the documents are written to protect the organisation first and the employee second, you know there may be a flawed culture. The policies set the framework for rewards and punishments.  … Continue reading

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