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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Tue, 2005-03-08 22:12.
I read an article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor, Harvard Business School that seemed particualry relevant to my interest in employee engagement. In this article Kanter indicates that confidence in an organization is more than just a spirit of "We can do it." It is the foundation, systems, and culture involving positive behaviors such as open communication, self-scrutiny, respect, teamwork, accountability, collaboration, and initiative that result in winning. In turn, winning breeds greater confidence and raises the company to an even higher level.
Building organizational confidence, especially in turnaround situations where organizations have been on losing streaks, is the work of leaders. Leaders must instill confidence by combining short-term "bold strokes" to quickly mobilize the organization, with initiating a "long march" that changes systems and habits. Leaders must start by building credibility and confidence in the organization through small wins. This can occur by fixing the work environment that people see every day and investing in people even prior to the achievement of results.
Defining confidence is simple: positive expectations for success. Confidence falls at the midpoint between despair, which results in feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, and arrogance, which triggers complacency and a sense of false entitlement. Confidence produces peak performance: a willingness to invest, commit, work hard, persist and persevere, making confidence a highly desirable trait.
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Tue, 2005-03-08 22:32.
One of the most difficult barriers in affecting change with clients over the past few years has been the notion that desired change will not occur without a distinct leadership plan that is strategically integrated with the change process.
One of the first points that we have been emphasizing is that the organization needs to appreciate the difference between management and leadership. Organizations are very good at developing management competencies and training their managers in these competencies. However, management competencies alone will not achieve the desired business objectives that are desired as a result of a change process. The appropriate leadership is needed as well. Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written on leadership. Many definitions have been offered. But the simplest way to characterize leadership as opposed to management is that leadership deals with behavior.
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Thu, 2005-03-10 21:39.
In his book Straight from the Gut, Jack Welch relates the story of the first time he was in front of Wall Street as CEO of General Electric. In a 20 minute speech he gave his audience a primer on what he felt it would take for a company to be viable in the long term. Winning companies he said would be the ones that search out and participate in real growth industries and insist on being Number One or Number Two in every business they are in. They would also be the Number One or Number Two leanest, lowest cost worldwide producers of quality goods and services. He told the Wall Street financial community that this was the strategy to which he would commit his company to the fullest effort imaginable. Read more »
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Thu, 2005-03-10 21:44.
In the process of selling businesses, reorganizing and strengthening other business units, Jack Welch also started a process of changing the culture at GE. He moved GE from a stogy bureaucratic organization to a more responsive entrepreneurial company. Part of the fall out of this change was the loss of 118,000 people from GE’s payroll in a Five year period. This earned him the name of Neutron Jack. In 1984 he was named the toughest boss in America by Fortune magazine. However, while he was either selling off or closing companies, he spent millions renovating the company’s headquarters and initiating a major upgrade to their Crotonville management development center. He attracted a legend of critics. Read more »
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Thu, 2005-03-10 21:50.
In 1992, Jack Welch discussed with GE’s leaders how to differentiate GE’s managers, based on their ability to deliver numbers, while maintaining GE’s values. He described four types of managers:
* Type 1: The manager who delivers on commitments-financial and otherwise-and shares the GE values. His or her futures are an easy call.
* Type 2: The manager who does not meet commitment and does not share the organization’s values. Not a pleasant call but just as easy as the first one.
* Type 3: The manager who misses commitments but shares all of the organizational values. This type might be given a second or third chance, just in a different environment.
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Thu, 2005-03-10 21:53.
There is no pat formula for being a CEO. Everyone does it differently and there is no right or wrong way to go about it no magic formula that is the right thing to do in all cases. Jack Welch has however, found a number of things that have helped him lead GE over the years, among them the following:
* Maintain your integrity. Establish your integrity and never waver from it. People might not have agreed with Welch on every issue, but they always knew they were getting it straight and honest.
* Set the tone for your company. The organization takes its cue from the person at the top. Welch always told his leaders that their personal intensity determined their organization’s intensity-how hard they worked and how many people they touched would be emulated a thousand times over.
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Mon, 2005-04-04 20:45.
O’Hara-Devereaux uses the metaphor of traveling through the badlands of the American West to describe the next 10 years of struggle and transition that organizations face today. To help companies bridge the space between the end of the Industrial Age and the “full promise of the Information Age,” the author provides them with tools and warnings that can prepare them for the road ahead. Her goal, she writes, is to soften the ride to creating a “vibrant, equitable, and fully integrated global society underpinned by robust economic growth worldwide.” She explains that today’s leaders and organizations are mismatched with the needs we will face in the new global reality. Read more »
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Wed, 2005-04-13 14:05.
Starting your own business and doing what you do best is easier than ever, according to Faculty Fellow at Yale and entrepreneurial wizard Bruce Judson. Even though only 20 percent of the 1.7 million employees polled by the Gallup Organization said they had the opportunity to do what they do best every day at work, and over 70 percent of U.S. workers are “disengaged” from their jobs, most do not set out on their own and start their own business. In Go It Alone!,Judson provides the practical steps that can help nearly any person create his or her own business.
Judson starts Go It Alone! by dismissing conventional wisdom and explaining that you do not need to build endless financial resources and a team of employees before starting a substantial business. He writes that his tips and suggestions can substantially limit the risk of failure associated with a new venture, and describes the specific steps that should be taken before launching a business.
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Mon, 2005-04-25 12:50.
Most organizations conduct employee surveys of various types either annually, every two years or sporadically. Some organizations use the data from the employee survey to affect real change that contributes to their ongoing success. There are organizations who like to focus on comparing their survey scores to the scores of other organizations and there are the organizations that do little with their survey results. The focus of this article is to discuss the middle group: those organizations that like to focus on and compare their employee survey scores against the average scores of all the organizations that are in a third party database. Read more »
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Thursday, December 04 2008
Submitted by spherica on Mon, 2006-05-15 10:51. Employee Wellness | Employee Engagement
SOURCE: Excerpt from Soundview “Executive Book Summaries,” July 2005
The Summary in Brief: Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s extraordinary life of leadership spanned more than six decades in the military, education, public administration and business sectors. The five-star general, one of only five in U.S. Army history, defined principles of leadership that were decades ahead of their time: principles reflecting shrewdness and wisdom about strategy, motivation, organization, execution and personal growth.
This summary reveals what MacArthur knew about setting the right goals; building sleek, fast-response organizations; inspiring subordinates to unprecedented performance; focusing relentlessly on results; and winning. In No Substitute for Victory, Theodore and Donna Kinni distill powerful leadership lessons from MacArthur’s life and career — lessons you can use, no matter where you lead and what you intend to accomplish.
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