I give lots of professional talks. I normally ask attendees: “How many of you know your company’s business model?” Less then 10% do. People can tell me what they do and what department they’re in. But, they don’t know the company’s business model. That’s shocking. Moreover, I can pretty much say that these are the …
Reorganization is the permanent condition of a vigorous organization. Roy Ash Charles Handy, probably the smartest workplace guru, said more than ten years ago that work is fundamentally changing. He coined the notion of ½ by 2 by 3 rule of corporate fitness. This workplace is characterized by half as many people on the …
While the hierarchal business organization still predominates, it’s also changing. Now, the hierarchal model is flatter and amorphous. Innovative organizational models are often based on interlocking groups, virtual partnerships, strategic alliances, and matrix organizations. In the horizontal organization, hierarchal levels disappear, work is simplified, and information is universally available. Responsibility, authority, resources, information, and decision-making are …
The traditional organizational structure was a pyramid with the Chief Executive Officer at the top. Now, organizational shapes span the entire spectrum from pyramid, matrix, clusters, and virtual, including: Core process. A common business wisdom is to focus on core processes and competencies or in other words, stick to your knitting. In this way, key …
Process is a particular course of action intended to achieve a result. Dictionary Work consists special projects and core processes. Thomas Davenport, author of Thinking for a Living said: “To treat something as a process is to impose a formal structure on it – to identify its beginning, end, and intermediate steps, to clarify …
If we have had a formula for growth it has been; start with the best; learn from the best, expand slowly and solidify our position; then horizontally diversify our expertise. Mark McCormick, business person All companies, even global corporations, have discovered they can’t be all things to all people. As companies attempted to please …
The first person gets the oyster; the second person gets the shell. Andrew Carnegie, business person
Positional or hierarchal power allows command and control or management by decree. But how do things get done in flat, cross-functional teamed and virtual organizations? More often, it is through influence tied to knowledge, access to resources, and persuasion.
In this Brand U world, all the rules are different and people don’t know what to do in what order because their 30 years of experience haven’t prepared them for all the change – think disruption. So, it’s not a lack of ideas. It more often comes down to poor execution, which may mean not …
What does a non-Brand U organization look like? Mort Meyerson, President of Perot Systems recently said, “the emphasis on profit-and-loss to the exclusion of other values was creating a culture of destructive contention. … For example, I listened to some of our senior leaders talk about how they handled people on teams who didn’t perform. …