As a reverse fairy tale for the CEO set, the reality television program Undercover Boss is fascinating, not so much in the witness-to-a-train- wreck mode of the rest of the genre, but because it is so revealing of our conflicted relationship with "the boss." The premise of the show—that the only way to get a clue about what's really going on in his (or her) organization, is for the boss to go undercover on the front lines—is all too often the actual reality in organizations of any size. Yet, at the same time, the view of the boss as the ultimate authority with the heroic power to swoop in and save the day—whether that means paying down a mortgage, granting an instant promotion, or banishing a reviled policy—holds sway in real life as well as on "reality" TV.
There is no doubt that there is tremendous goodwill, not to mention countless exciting experiments, when it comes to making the world of work more deeply human—designed to promote more freedom , equity , and engagement , and passion . Why, then, can those words sound so cheap and drained of their...
The following is an excerpt from Gary Hamel's forthcoming book, What Matters Now , to be published in December 2011 by Jossey-Bass Business. In 1997 I bought an e-tablet from A.T. Cross, the pen company. Codeveloped with IBM, the CrossPad was hailed as a breakthrough product that would open up a...
When you ask children what they want to be when they are older, how many of them say they want to be a manager? I've certainly never met one who had such aspirations. In part this is because management is a pretty amorphous concept to a ten-year-old. But it's also because we adults aren't exactly...
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." That chestnut has morphed from sales proposition to object lesson on the perils of clinging to convention in less than a generation. We've ditched the dark suits and "sincere" ties of our father's IBM for black turtlenecks and jeans, and we've embraced the "think different" ethos of Apple's celebrated campaign : "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently."
Our big goal here at the MIX is to inspire and unleash as much collective aspiration, audacity, imagination, energy, and passion as possible when it comes to making all of our organizations fit for the future--and fit for human beings. We've said it before: so much is broken when it comes to how...
Innovation can happen by chance, without a determined effort or specific methodology. But when it does, it's more like luck than strategic progress. While there is a role for serendipity in strategy – being able to take advantage of pleasant surprises -- too often, that's the only way companies approach innovation: with fingers crossed.
We all know that big, established companies struggle to respond to "disruptive" change. Blockbuster, HMV, Nokia, and Yahoo! are all current examples of companies that are struggling with this problem--they are trying to adapt, but are being held back by powerful and often invisible inertial forces...
On Wednesday February 9 th at 1PM Eastern (tomorrow!) all MIX members are invited to attend a webinar discussion between Gary Hamel and the HCI Human Capital M-Prize semifinalists. The semifinalists will share a short summary of their idea or story, and Gary will give feedback on developing each...
In a WSJ post I promised that I’d lay out a blueprint for building a company that’s as nimble as change itself—and I will, but first I’d like to share an anecdote about a simple experiment in workplace freedom. In most organizations, the decision-making freedoms of frontline employees are highly...
