On management

We’re all great drivers – so we think and self-report… but what would other drivers say? Same with management.

One more time: How do I lead by example? – You don’t. You never do. “Leading by example” is based on a faulty assumption.

A genius is the one most like himself: Thelonious Monk’s tips for musicians – encouraging managers I work with to have a readme document for themselves and to have a structured, personal way of welcoming new members to their team.

On the difference between management and leadership

Here’s why you are skeptical about empowerment – empowerment can lead to more autonomous employees, but micromanagers will micromanage.

The strength of weak ties – on generating random conversations across the company that can lead to solutions by connecting people who might otherwise never talk

The job candidate selection process is a fail. Try this.– relating my experience with the owner/manager of a large, successful engineering firm (it might have been the largest in the country at the time) that had a unique way of selecting and hiring candidates.

How should I react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake? – The research says the more compassionate response will get you more powerful results.

Creativity: it’s about exploration v. exploitation – a meta-analysis of the research on creativity

How do I know my people won’t watch Netflix all day? – Short answer: Netflix isn’t the real danger.

Post-covid19 job interview – A question job candidates should ask

A first-person account of switching from engineer to manager – Don’t do it if you consider it a promotion. (…) Also don’t do it if you want to micromanage or control your team members, or want the authority to correct bad behaviour. There are plenty good reasons why you should.

A list of best practices will not make you a great company … any more than finding a recipe will make you a great cook.

Stop mulling over millennials – They want the same things from their employers that Generation X and Baby Boomers do

A modest proposal: eliminate email – of course, I don’t want to eliminate it altogether. But there are ways for it to serve you… and not the other way around.

Because you don’t hire half a person – a quote from Peter Drucker, “the father of management”, worth thinking about

We’re all rational decision makers? Think again. – we are imperfectly rational creatures who make sub-optimal decisions. It’s time to re-visit our assumptions.

Holding a meeting of people from different cultures – what the research says

Mintzberg: time to think of organizations as communities of cooperation – and in so doing put leadership in its place

Managers who claim to know the future are more often dangerous fools than great visionaries – in a complex and changing world, better foxes than hedgehogs

Why management matters – the battle of ideas is decided not by which best explain the world but which most affect it

All of business is about values, all of the time – our focus on the factual is actually a moral decision

Leçon pour chefs d’entreprise: « Václav Havel a toujours douté de lui-même » – la personification de l’idéal platonique selon lequel au pouvoir il faut des gens qui ne veulent pas gouverner

Pep Guardiola y Fernando Trueba hablan de dirección – un técnico de fútbol y un director de cine nos dan la mejor conversación sobre el oficio del manager

The dumbest idea in the world: maximizing shareholder value – a question that informs all decisions we make in business organizations

When is the last time you saw such a CEO? – the unusual and inspiring practices of the head of Japan Airlines

The difference between management theorists and philosophers – the first difference is philosophers are much better at knowing what they don’t know. There is a second one.

Mind your metaphors: We’re a team, not a family – in a family you never can fire somebody like your Uncle Joe. In a team, everybody’s got a role to play.

Mintzberg’s latest on managing – managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. One step removed, [managers] manage people. And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action

Life lessons delivered on sidelines – There is what you do in the position. And there is who you choose to be in the position.

Evidence-Based Management – the 5 principles

Reacting to decline, dissatisfaction and dilemmas – I discuss the five ways in which people will react when conflicted

Looking for ways to cut red tape?

Hamel on management innovation – not operational innovations. Innovation in management principles and processes that ultimately changes the practice of what managers do, and how they do it.

Sutton on Pfeffer – Professor Bob Sutton of Stanford University identified the three greatest living organizational theorists. All three have practical, actionable research well worth being familiar with.

Netflix to employees: Take as much vacation as you want

Managers need fable not fact – it’s about storytelling

How do you set people on fire? – first, toss your powerpoint slides. it’s (again) about storytelling

Manager or Computer? – advantage managers if and only if they make a strength of their “weakness”: that they acknowledge and correct their mistakes.

Henry Mintzberg on heroic managers – don’t be one. Be an engaging manager.

Whole-brain management – insights grounded in the fundamentals of the human condition

Fortune: Jack Welch rules no more – RIP the Darwinian approach to management.