One of the things that attracted me to Red Hat in the first place was that it was a company with a strong sense of purpose. Red Hat was a company full of believers, people who felt that the open source development model was simply a better way. During my first few months as CEO, I traveled to Red...
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...
Most of the industrial pioneers who created “modern” management—individuals like Frederick Taylor, Frank Gilbreth, Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and Donaldson Brown—were born in the 19th century. These bold thinkers would no doubt be surprised to learn that their inventions, which included workflow...
I was delighted to catch up recently with one of my teachers, and found her as passionate about educating children today as she was three decades ago, when I was in school. We had a great conversation, but I must admit to a sense of disquiet as I heard her opinions about the next generation. Gen Y'...
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...
Editor's Note: Ross Smith has worked in every corner of the software industry for over 20 years and is currently a Director of Test at Microsoft. You can read his M-Prize-winning STORY Organizational Trust: 42projects . In 1855, Robert Browning published a poem about the Italian Renaissance painter...
Organizations that thrive over the long run, in good times and bad, pay explicit attention to all these issues. Three of them, though, seem particularly crucial as we think about new challenges confronting us today.
I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault—a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley’s feverish, get-it...
