Strategy needs a purpose
There is a wonderful blog post by Idris Mootee that I just recently read that I would like to recommend to everyone. (http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2008/05/what-do-you-know-about-business-strategy.html) .
I would like to reprint a portion of his post because I feel it was so eloquently stated.
“Purpose is really the heart of any business strategy and should provide the guiding [...]
Marketing ROI?….Picking Up The Gauntlet
In his last post on The Challenge of Investing in People, Norm likened the current skepticism of many business leaders re “people investment” to that of the view of marketing 20+ years ago. He went on to state:
And still today no one has yet come up with a way of tying marketing dollars into actual [...]
The Challenge of Investing in People
Have you ever heard a board member, or perhaps even a CEO say, “The Company sure invests a lot in trainings, meetings, and “feel good” stuff, and I wonder if more of those resources and energy went into focus on results whether we would be better off?” When we ask the CEO to focus on [...]
Leadership in the public eye
I can’t help but comment on the recent news about Elliot Spitzer, Governor of NY and former prosecutor of such high profile cases as Dick Grasso, former CEO of the New York k Stock Exchange. Mr. Spitzer had promoted himself as the protector of the small guy against those corrupt corporate executives. His whole public [...]
The evolution of the organization – Part 3
The third phase began to emerge in the literature around the late 80s and early 90s and is now becoming more recognized in the life of corporations. I have called this stage the Spiritual stage, not because of its relationship to religion or any specific spiritual path, but because it has all the elements found [...]
Leadership: The Philosopher’s Stone of Innovation…? (Part 2)
The other end of the spectrum re strategic decision-making is where it is totally driven by the leadership of the company. This is very often the case with start-up, early-stage and founder-run, privately held firms. The potential advantages are somewhat obvious: strategy is driven by a focused vision, factors which may not be effectively quantifiable [...]
Leadership: The Philosopher’s Stone of Innovation…? (Part 1)
I had the opportunity to speak before the Association for Strategic Planning this week on the topic of Innovation - an inherently rather broad and deep subject, so my approach was one of surveying the various paradigms of innovation (creativity/ideation, invention, implementation, value-creation, etc.), and that all of these conceptual frameworks for understanding [...]
The evolution of the organizations – Part 2
The second major stage of organization model started to emerge around the middle of the 20th century. It was heralded by the work of the humanist psychologist like Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and applied to organization life by people like McGregor and Herzberg.
This movement, if one wants to call it that, added another component to [...]
The evolution of organizations – Part 1
Organizations have gone through two major evolutionary transitions over the last 100 years. The first was the foundation of the modern organization around the turn of the 20th century.
This was the time of Henry Ford and the mass production. It saw the emergence of Frederick Taylor and the scientific method of management. It viewed the [...]
The challenge of new business paradigms
I recently gave a presentation on the third evolution of business, what I call the Spiritual Phase of organizations. (For more on this look for a future article to be published on our website.)
While many in the audience clearly understood how organizations have evolved from the Machine Phase to the Humanist Phase and we are [...]