The trouble with values

Here’s a quote:

Good corporate governance practice is an important ingredient in creating and sustaining shareholder value, and ensuring that behavior is ethical, legal and transparent.

Nothing special there. Much the same turns up in most value statements. Roughly translated, it says “lets make our business succeed rather than fail, and let’s do that by playing fair”.

Most would agree. So much so, that I’m not sure why people insist on stating it in lofty terms and enshrining it in fancy bold type. It’s like saying maybe we are not really like that but we’d like to be.

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Networking Vs. Network

What does networking actually mean?

For many it’s social purgatory; like standing around at a cocktail party feeling like a bunny in the headlights. Everyone seems comfortable except you.

That’s not what a network is about. That’s simply a bit of social fear and we can all have it.

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The Collaborative Cockpit

Good managers are neither ideologues nor cynics

Before the acronym CRM was hijacked by Customer Relationship Management, it stood for Cockpit Resource Management. Developed by NASA in the 1970s, it was a collaborative practice aimed at curbing disasters due to human error.

This original CRM was adopted by commercial airlines and is still a key part of aircrew training. It’s credited with a two-decade fall in the number of aircraft mishaps caused by people rather than malfunction.

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Silent solutions: how keeping quiet can help

Ever tried to manage a problem by not offering a solution?

A lot of us automatically give advice. It’s not just a Mars and Venus thing.  Men and women both do it. Sometimes it is the right thing to do; sometimes it’s not.

We are not all natural listeners. For most of my life, I did not think listening was an action. I thought only the people talking were actually doing something. My wife has often pointed out the error in this.

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Is the leadership thing taking us in the right direction?

Real change doesn’t start in the corner office.

Want to disempower someone? Just tell them exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Don’t tell them why it needs to be done. Avoid any reference to the importance of their input, and never ask if they have any ideas on how it might be done differently.

Command and control had a good run through the industrial revolution. It didn’t start running out of steam until the middle of last century. Even today it persists as a leadership option, often clothed in jargon about complexity and the need for simplicity. Got a problem? Don’t worry; we’ll sort it out with a new policy.

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