Telecommuting Benefits
Develop flexible schedules Lower stress Lower commuting costs Freedom of office interruption/meetings Cut costs Balance work and family life Keep top talent Respond to customer requests 24 hours/day
Processes
Architecting the Organization
The traditional organizational structure was a pyramid with the Chief Executive Officer at the top. Now, Brand U organizational shapes span the entire spectrum from pyramid, matrix, clusters, and virtual. Organizations are setting up different structures, including: Core processed. Common business wisdom is to focus on core processes and competencies or in other words, stick …
Death of CEO Homesteading
Another data point: “Humana Inc.’s president and chief executive, Gregory H. Wolf, resigned yesterday following two consecutive quarters of earning setbacks and despite a recently announced plan to get the big managed care concern back on track.”[i] “Alan Shugart, father of the modern computer disk-drive industry and one of Silicon Valley’s most colorful chiefs, was …
My Company Owes Me!
I paid my dues! I worked 50 hours last week! I bailed out my team! My company, church, school, government owes me. How many TV shows can we watch that glorify the victim mentality? For the last two decades, the entitlement and victimization mentalities drove many. So and so owes me because I’ve been stressed, …
Shifting Work and Jobs
The only management practice that’s now constant is the practice of constantly accommodating to change. William McGowan, MCI Chairman Work, careers, and jobs now shift like quicksand. The destruction of traditional jobs, the emergence of Brand U careers, the role of new work rules, and the fundamental changes of work can’t be ignored or dismissed. …
Adios Siestas
“With Spain under pressure to conform to the shorter lunch break habits in most of the 14 other countries in the European Union, its traditional workday – with its three-hour siesta break to eat and sleep – is disappearing.” Why? The siesta is a big issue in Spain because the midday snooze is another example of …
More Organizational Transformations
Much of the rapid organizational transformations including indiscriminate downsizing over the last several years have been senseless. Approximately 62% of companies in one survey didn’t even look at other methods for reducing costs before getting rid of people. Many followed the reengineering herd to downsize people instead of changing fundamental processes or growing the business. …
New Normal – Continuous Transformations
With more people having access to business information, markets are becoming more efficient and effective. To remain competitive, companies are forced to rethink every aspect of their business and their basic assumptions – their business models of pricing, demand, delivery, inventory management, marketing strategies, and branding. The competitiveness paradigm discussed in the last chapter infects …
Dilbert is Alive and Well
Over the last several years, your employer may have downsized, restructured, rightsized, transformed, teamed, and refocused itself. This may mean different things to you. You’ve been asked to do more with less. Your friends have been fired. You’re working longer hours. Your bosses are making stupid decisions. You’re getting paid less per hour than last …
Small is Beautiful
Schumacher about 20 years ago wrote a simple and paradigm-busting book called Small is Beautiful. This was a breakthrough book when the business world was thinking big is better. In year 2000, small means entrepreneurial, start-up, paradigm busting, vibrant, customer-driven, free, and profitable. Big, slow, hindering, plodding, and corporate are dead. Entrepreneurship, ‘doing it your …