Grit ought not be ringfenced to individuals READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Resilience is all the rage. Across the world, no matter how draconian and inhumane the level of lockdown, managers, leaders, executives – let’s call them people – have been encouraged to tap into their psychological resources. The message is universal: the magic tonic … Read more
Leaders’ priorities are changing for the better, writes Kate Cooper READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION People are back in fashion. The priorities of business are shifting from compliance with rules and regulations to the needs of human beings. If there is one good thing to emerge from this pandemic, it’s organizations’ slow realization that trusting … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Kate Cooper urges decision makers, ‘lead us not into something worse’ Mistakes provide critical experience. Many managers and leaders learn their craft by getting things wrong. They review, revise, redo. Much of the time, their second attempt is better than their first. Poor leadership is not always the consequence of … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION The answer to intractable problems like coronavirus comes from dialogue and discussion, not blind dynamism. Ploughing a determined, certain leadership path based on the ‘the science’ is absurd. There are several competing schools of science, and always have been. Scientific thought is a loose collection of theory, argument, experiment and … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION The corner office is going out of fashion, says Kate Cooper Yet perhaps the race to the corner will soon become passé? Earlier this year, the MSC Software boss Paolo Guglielmini told the BBC that he’d abandoned his office – to sit among his employees. MSC designs simulation programs for … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Kate Cooper wants to know: where are our critical friends? Dr Meredith Belbin has stood the test of time. Now in his 90s, his almost-four-decade-old book, Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail, is arguably even more relevant today than it was when published in 1981. The volume followed years … Read more
In complex, unbounded systems, every interaction is meaningful READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Under lockdown, boundaries have at once become both greater and fewer. The physical boundaries between us have increased to an extent that would have been presented as science fiction, had anyone suggested it in the autumn of 2019. How we miss a … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION To meet is human, writes Kate Cooper Eight years ago, Japanese precision tool manufacturer Disco implemented a radical change to its management model. Under the changes, teams were billed for their work and individuals treated as one-person start-ups, having to pay for desks, computers and the use of meeting rooms. … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Many cultures are comfortable with not knowing What are the consequences of culture? Professor Geert Hofstede and his team have for over 20 years been undertaking research into culture, both national and organizational. The work started in the 1970s with a study of IBM employees. More than 100,000 questionnaires were … Read more
Don’t confine storytelling, urges Kate Cooper [button type=”large” color=”black” rounded=”1″ link=”https://issuu.com/revistabibliodiversidad/docs/dialogue_q2_2019_full_book/35″ ]READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION[/button] 2018 seemed to be the year of ‘storytelling’. I have heard many claims from contributors to workshops, seminars and conferences that they “work with stories”. What do they mean? Humans tell stories. Some cultures have a largely oral tradition. … Read more