Office Politics
« Previous EntriesHow business leaders use the news
Monday, July 26th, 2010Balance, it appears, is the new political incorrectness.
Unsubscribes peaked following last week’s satire that drew parallels between voter outrage and how bad bosses have treated people over the years. It was clear many would have had no problem with the subject matter had I validated their outrage instead.
Now don’t go away … this column is [...]
The fifth response to risk
Monday, June 14th, 2010We need to add a response.
The risk management profession lists four ways to deal with risk. There’s:
Prevention (which can mean reducing the odds of an occurrence as well as eliminating them) …
Mitigation, limiting the damage that occurs should the risk turn into reality …
Insurance, spreading the cost of any damage that occurs …
… and, [...]
Enterprise technical architecture management — an old new idea
Monday, May 10th, 2010Ever meet someone who just has to have a strong opinion on every subject, whether or not they know anything about it?
Those known for expertise are particularly prone to this ailment. Some of us, having learned one subject in great depth (in my case the behavior of electric fish), use that experience to recognize our [...]
Leading without authority
Monday, November 16th, 2009What if the CEO had no authority?
Take it a step further: What if you had no authority either? Same job, same responsibilities. You gauge success the same way you gauge it today. The only difference is that you can’t exert your authority and make it stick.
How much would change? Very little, I hope. Those who [...]
Issue Management: What the methodologies leave out
Monday, October 19th, 2009Scientists call it the observer effect. It’s what happens when the act of observation affects what they’re observing. Werner Heisenberg used it to develop his uncertainty principle. It’s why medical researchers use double-blind treatment trials and placebo controls.
Threat management – the political plan
Monday, October 12th, 2009Imagine you’re no longer responsible for keeping your company’s computers up and running. Instead, you’re an epidemiologist. Rather than a new and very aggressive malware threat you read about a new and highly contagious virus … the statistics indicate 30% of those exposed become infected and roughly 1.25% of those infected die.
The U.S. has a [...]
An ounce of metrics can’t be weighed
Monday, September 7th, 2009Cast your mind back to November of 2008.
Unlike many political commentators I suspect your memory of the time is vivid, filled as it was with layoffs, plummeting investments, layoffs, negative profits, layoffs, the failure of huge financial institutions and layoffs.
One might almost think something important went on back then.
Pentagonalitil
Monday, August 3rd, 2009When you have a flat tire, do you:
A. Keep driving, complaining about how bumpy the road is?
B. Pump air into the tire and hope it won’t leak out this time?
C. Bolt on a new axle?
D. Repair or replace the tire?
In far too many companies the answer is, for some reason, “Anything but D.”
One must-read article from KJR
Monday, July 27th, 2009A headline on HBR’s home page reads, “10 Must-Read Articles from HBR.” The text begins, “If you read nothing else, read these 10 articles from HBR’s most influential authors, covering the essential management topics.”
What follows is this list:
Outlook Cloudy
Monday, July 13th, 2009Professor Irwin Corey would understand …
The “World’s Foremost Authority” once explained, “Today we’re going to talk about the universe. Why? Because there isn’t anything else!”
I’d hoped that when I deconstructed Nicholas Carr’s paean to Cloud computing — officially titled The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google but more properly titled The Joys [...]
Bob Lewis is president of 