Management

Management

How to Work More Like a Start-Up

Inc.com | by Darren Dahl | May 2009

The first thing you notice when you walk into the Chicago offices of Total Attorneys, which provides software and services to small law firms, is the number of people on their feet. Every morning, the company’s 180 employees gather around the office in groups of five to 10. Close your eyes, take in the often raucous banter and laughter, and it’s easy to mistake Total Attorneys’s headquarters for a college cafeteria. But these meetings, which last for about 15 minutes, are more than mere employee chitchat. They are intended to create what CEO Ed Scanlan calls controlled chaos.

The inspiration for the gatherings comes from a process for designing software called agile development, which aims to promote flexibility, speed, and teamwork. But rather than limit participation to software engineers, Scanlan has deployed agile development concepts companywide, in a drive to make the seven-year-old business act more like the start-up it once was. [Read more…]

Jack Welch Elaborates: Shareholder Value

BusinessWeek | Suzy & Jack Welch | Mar. 16, 2009

Welch told the Financial Times the emphasis on shareholder value is “misplaced.” In this Q&A, he puts his comments in context

On Mar. 12, the Financial Times ran a front-page story with the headline “Welch Denounces Corporate Obsessions.” The article, which generated widespread reaction in the media and on blogs, asserted that in an interview with the FT, Jack Welch, the former head of General Electric (GE), had described the business emphasis on shareholder value as “misplaced.”

“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world,” Welch was quoted as saying. Below, in a question-and-answer session conducted by his wife, Suzy Welch, Jack Welch elaborates. [Read more…]

Street Smarts: Surviving the Recession

Inc.com | by Norm Brodsky | March 2009

It requires conquering your fears and making the right choices. Many business owners won’t do either

Fear can be a motivator, but it can also lead you into bad decisions, particularly in times like these. I have no doubt that a lot of business owners have spent the past couple of months implementing cost-saving plans and survival strategies that will weaken their companies and damage their long-term prospects. They’ve done it because they’ve been afraid, and fear makes us shortsighted. With the economy falling apart around us, we forget that recessions always end. Yes, some businesses will go under, but some companies will emerge stronger. If you want yours to be among the latter, you need to be careful about which costs you cut and which deals you offer your customers. [Read more…]

The Employee Whisperer

Fast Company | by Kate Rockwood | November 2008

How Kenexa is blending psychology and technology to create passionate workers.

At the suburban Philadelphia offices of Kenexa, people grin at one another all day long. Sometimes they hug. Bright posters of the company’s guiding principles dot the walls: YOU’RE ALLOWED TO LAUGH YOUR WAY THROUGH A PROBLEM AND MAKING FRIENDS REPLACES OUR ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY. The CEO, Rudy Karsan, spouts odd koanlike talk: “The world is like a roomful of jars. Every time you open a jar, there’s untold treasure in there.” [Read more…]

Should Your People Come Before Your Customers?

InformationWeek | by Rob Preston | Sept. 29, 2008

One school of thought is that if you treat your people right, they’ll be far more motivated and equipped to engage with (and maximize returns from) your customers.

The customer comes first. It’s considered a business management truism. The way to boost profits and market caps is to focus on the people who buy your products. “Delight” them, as former GE chief Jack Welch would say. Create relationships that foster brand loyalty and return business. Management experts C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan go a step further, exhorting companies to “co-create value” with their customers, one customer at a time. [Read more…]

Fixing Washington D.C.’s School System

Fast Company | by Jeff Chu | September 2008

No one is attacking Washington, D.C.’s stagnant culture more boldly than Michelle Rhee, head of the city’s failing schools. Is there a lesson here for our nation’s leaders?

Paul Laurence Dunbar Senior High School in Washington, D.C., is one of the worst schools in one of the worst school districts in America. “The mentality of excellence? We wish we could have that,” said principal Harriett Kargbo, as we toured the school one morning in May. “But this,” she said, pointing at the metal detector guarding the entrance, “is the reality. [Read more…]

Managing for Long-Term Success and Profitability

Business Success and Profitability Long-TermGood management has nothing to do with short-term successes and the management elixirs that allegedly led to them. This seemingly banal insight results from a long-term, historical perspective like [Peter] Drucker’s. It cannot be achieved by judgments based on quarterly results, but rather emerges from a deeply rooted understanding of the durable, unclouded by short-term spectacular success stories. Not the momentary “how” is important, but rather the seminal “why.” (Herman Simon, Management Beyond the Day)

Despite well-established management principles that require a long-term perspective be used when evaluating all business decisions and the countless organizational failures and disasters that demonstrate the consequences of ignoring such strategic thinking, many corporations continue to repeat those same mistakes and seemingly fail to learn their lessons. This may be due to the pressures placed on companies to be “profitable” for the next quarter that motivate senior executives to quickly maximize share prices while ignoring the potential negative effects to the long-term profitability, value, and survivability of an organization. Another explanation for this dysfunctional approach may be the flawed compensation systems and executive contracts that reward management for short-sighted profitability decisions without demanding accountability for the long-term organizational profitability and taking into consideration the impact on the long-term value and competitive position of a company. [Read more…]