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...
In 1961, Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen wrote a PDP-1 program to create a game they called SpaceWar! – oft-cited as the first video game. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell famously created PONG to rock our world. Space Invaders showed up in 1977. PacMan entered the lexicon in 1980, about...
One of the most important roles to fill when trying to build a passionate community is the storyteller . Edelman SVP Steve Rubel hit the nail on the head in a recent blog post entitled The Rise of the Corporate Transmedia Storyteller . From his post: -- "The reality is, however, that organizations...
The competition for the world’s first management innovation prize has officially closed—and the judging has begun! We’d like to send out a hearty thanks to the hundreds of MIXers who poured their bold thinking and tremendous effort into crafting STORIES and HACKS aimed at tackling the moonshots of Increasing Trust , Reinventing Leadership , and Taking the Work out of Work . We are inspired and energized by the sheer variety and originality of the submissions—and we and our panel of Mavericks are hard at work on the difficult task of choosing just a few winners.
About two years ago, I read a book called The Future of Management by Gary Hamel at the recommendation of some friends. I couldn’t put it down, devouring Gary’s three case studies of companies ( Google , Whole Foods , and W.L. Gore ) pushing aside 100+ years of management wisdom and charting their...
The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian...
My conversation with our newest MIX Maverick Andrew McAfee yielded all kinds of bracing insight when it comes to how we set strategy, structure work, unleash talent, and measure success. But I haven’t been able to shake one idea in particular he threw out at the end of our conversation as a...
Manonamission.blogspot.com is a great collection of corporate mission statements. I recently used its search function to find examples of companies that prominently and publicly state something close to "people are our most important asset." Here's a partial list: Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Land...
A few months ago, in one of our Centered Leadership learning sessions, a Latin American executive approached me with an insight that had deeply affected him. “In our transformation meetings,” he said, “we always talk about how they have to change. I realize I have to change myself first if I want...
Michael G. Jacobides feels that strategy might best be cast as a dramatic playscript that can help cope with a shifting landscape, and motivate employees far better than traditional strategic plans. Read the full article on London Business School's site.
