On Organizational Configurations

To manage organizations in ways that will make our society manageable, we need to spark innovations in management. Consider the organization in which you work. What configuration does it have and what does that tell you? What might you do to enhance the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of its structure? (No. 112 | February 2012)

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Conflict in Organizations

Complex adaptive systems are the source of much intra-organizational conflict that will not be managed, let alone resolved. To foster learning, adaptation, and evolution in the workplace, organizations should capitalize on its functions and dysfunctions with mindfulness, improvisation, and reconfiguration. (No. 108 | October 2011)

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Surveying Communities of Practice

Surveys are used to find promising opportunities for improvement; identify, create a consensus about, and act on issues to be addressed; record a baseline from which progress can be measured; motivate change efforts; and provide two-way communication between stakeholders. Healthy communities of practice leverage survey instruments to mature into influence structures that demand or are asked to assume influential roles in their host organizations. (No. 104 | July 2011)

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Delegating in the Workplace

The act of delegating calls for and rests on trust. In organizations, delegation had better be understood as a web of tacit governance arrangements across quasi-boundaries rather than the execution of tasks with definable boundaries. (No. 101 | April 2011)

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Enriching Knowledge Management Coordination

With decreasing bureaucracy and decentralization of operations, the span of knowledge coordination should be as close as possible to relevant knowledge domains. Coordinating mediums, or knowledge managers, have key roles to play. (No. 96 | December 2010)

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Informal Authority in the Workplace

In most types of organizations, formal authority is located at the top as part of an exchange against fairly explicit expectations. In networked, pluralistic organizations that must rapidly formulate adaptive solutions in an increasingly complex world, its power is eroding as its functions become less clear. In the 21st century, the requirements of organizational speed demand investments in informal authority. (No. 90 | August 2010)

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A Primer on Social Neuroscience

The human mind is driven by an emergent array of biological, cognitive, and social properties. Unconscious processes perform feats we thought required intention, deliberation, and conscious awareness. The breakthroughs of social neuroscience are fostering more comprehensive theories of the mechanisms that underlie human behavior. (No. 89 | August 2010)

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Bridging Organizational Silos

To develop and deliver products and services, large organizations rely on teams. Yet, the defining characteristics of these often hamper collaboration among different parts of the organization. The root cause is conflict: it must be accepted then actively managed. Promoting effective cross-functional teams demands that an enabling environment be built for that. (No. 88 | July 2010)

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A Primer on Corporate Values

Corporate values articulate what guides an organization's behavior and decision making. They can boost innovation, productivity, and credibility, and help deliver thereby sustainable competitive advantage. However, a look at typical statements of corporate values suggests much work remains to be done before organizations draw real benefits from them. (No. 87 | June 2010)

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Sparking Social Innovations

Necessity is the mother of invention. The demand for good ideas, put into practice, that meet pressing unmet needs and improve people's lives is growing on a par with the agenda of the 21st century. In a shrinking world, social innovation at requisite institutional levels can do much to foster smart, sustainable globalization. (No. 79 | March 2010)

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Improving Sector and Thematic Reporting

Communities of practice have become an accepted part of organizational development. Learning organizations build and leverage them with effect. To reach their potential, much as other bodies, they stand to gain from healthy reporting. Quality of information and its proper presentation enable stakeholders to make sound and reasonable assessments of performance, and take appropriate action. (No. 67 | November 2009)

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Distributing Leadership

The prevailing view of leadership is that it is concentrated or focused. In organizations, this makes it an input to business processes and performance— dependent on the attributes, behaviors, experience, knowledge, skills, and potential of the individuals chosen to impact these. The theory of distributed leadership thinks it best considered as an outcome. Leadership is defined by what one does, not who one is. Leadership at all levels matters and must be drawn from, not just be added to, individuals and groups in organizations. (No. 64 | October 2009) Read the paper [ PDF: 785kb | 8 pages ]

Exercising Servant Leadership

Servant leadership is now in the vocabulary of enlightened leadership. It is a practical, altruistic philosophy that supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead, as a way of expanding service to individuals and organizations. The sense of civil community that it advocates and engenders can facilitate and smooth successful and principled change. (No. 63 | September 2009)

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Learning in Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliances that bring organizations together promise unique opportunities for partners. The reality is often otherwise. Successful strategic alliances manage the partnership, not just the agreement, for collaborative advantage. Above all, they also pay attention to learning priorities in alliance evolution. (No. 62 | September 2009)

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Leading in the Workplace

Theories of leadership are divided: some underscore the primacy of personal qualities; others stress that systems are all-important. Both interpretations are correct: a larger pool of leaders is desirable all the time (and superleaders are necessary on occasion) but its development must be part of systemic invigoration of leadership in organizations.(No. 59 | August 2009) Read the paper [ PDF: 539kb | 8 pages ]

Building Trust in the Workplace

Workplace dynamics make a significant difference to people and the organizations they sustain. High-performance organizations earn, develop, and retain trust for superior results. (No. 57 | August 2009)

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Managing Virtual Teams

Virtual team management is the ability to organize and coordinate with effect a group whose members are not in the same location or time zone, and may not even work for the organization. The predictor of success is as always clarity of purpose. But group participation in achieving that is more than ever important to compensate for lost context. Virtual team management requires deeper understanding of people, process, and technology, and recognition that trust is a more limiting factor compared with face-to-face interactions. (No. 55 | August 2009)

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Wearing Six Thinking Hats

The difference between poor and effective teams lies not so much in their collective mental equipment but in how well they use their abilities to think together. The Six Thinking Hats technique helps actualize the thinking potential of teams. (No. 50 | June 2009)

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Collaborating with Wikis

Wikis are websites that invite voluntary contributions to organize information. They harness the power of collaborative minds to innovate faster, cocreate, and cut costs. They are now serious business. (No. 45 | May 2009)

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Drawing Mind Maps

Mind maps are a visual means that represent, link, and arrange concepts, themes, or tasks, with connections usually extending radially from a central topic. They are used by individuals and groups (informally and intuitively) to generate, visualize, structure, and classify these. (No. 40 | April 2009)

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