International Wheelchair Day March 1st 21012

Find out if anything is going on near you to increase understanding and awareness of the challenge and help make access for for all a reality.

 

Visualization Methods – great tool

One of the most useful  tools I have been introduced to  recently – The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods courtesy of VisualLiteracy.org .

The Best Knowledge of 2011

 - if the best is what the most people were interested to know,  then the following were important to read in 2011. Enjoy 

2011 HBS Working Knowledge Top 10 stories: (# unique visitors)

What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better (29,119)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6665.html 
Published: April 25, 2011
A CEO’s schedule is especially important to a firm’s financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers.

Being the Boss (26,224) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6573.html
Published: January 17, 2011
Striking the right balance between good management and good leadership is a daunting but necessary challenge for anyone endeavoring to be a good boss. In Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill and former executive Kent Lineback discuss the steps to take and the roadblocks to avoid in order to meet that challenge.

Is Groupon Good for Retailers? (25,712) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6600.html
Published: January 10, 2011
For retailers offering deals through the wildly popular online start-up Groupon, does the one-day publicity compensate for the deep hit to profit margins? A new working paper, “To Groupon or Not to Groupon,” sets out to help small businesses decide. Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G. Edelman discusses the paper’s findings

Teaching a ‘Lean Startup’ Strategy (24,997) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6659.html
Published: April 11, 2011
Most startups fail because they waste too much time and money building the wrong product before realizing too late what the right product should have been, says HBS entrepreneurial management professor Thomas R. Eisenmann. In his new MBA course, Launching Technology Ventures, Eisenmann introduces students to the idea of the lean startup—a methodology that has proven successful for many young high-tech companies.

Clay Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing (24,877) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6496.html
Published: February 14, 2011
About 95 percent of new products fail. The problem often is that their creators are using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism, according to HBS professor Clayton Christensen. It’s time for companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done.

Are You a Level-Six Leader? (23,834) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6752.html
Published: July 6, 2011
Asking the question, whom do you serve? is a powerful vector on which to build a useful typology of leadership. Visiting professor Modesto Maidique offers a six-level Purpose-Driven Model of Leadership ranging from Sociopath to Transcendent.

HBS Cases: Lady Gaga (22,795) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6812.html
Published: September 26, 2011
What goes into creating the world’s largest pop star? Before her fame hit, Lady Gaga’s manager faced decisions that could have derailed the performer’s career. A new case by Associate Professor Anita Elberse examines the strategic marketing choices that instead created a global brand.

Why Leaders Lose Their Way (21,651) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6741.html
Published: June 6, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is just the latest in a string of high-profile leaders making the perp walk. What went wrong, and how can we learn from it? Professor Bill George discusses how powerful people lose their moral bearings. To stay grounded executives must prepare themselves to confront enormous complexities and pressures.

It’s Not Nagging: Why Persistent, Redundant Communication Works (18,159) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6629.html
Published: April 18, 2011
Managers who inundate their teams with the same messages, over and over, via multiple media, need not feel bad about their persistence. In fact, this redundant communication works to get projects completed quickly, according to new research by Harvard Business School professor Tsedal B. Neeley and Northwestern University’s Paul M. Leonardi and Elizabeth M. Gerber.

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator (17,348) 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6792.html
Published: October 31, 2011
When evaluating compensation issues, economists often assume that both an employer and an employee make rational, albeit self-interested choices while working toward a goal. The problem, says Assistant Professor Ian Larkin, is that the most powerful workplace motivator is our natural tendency to measure our own performance against the performance of others.

The Social Animal

If you don’t know David Brooks, NYT columnist and an expert on human behaviour, I encourage you to read or watch him whenever you can, great insight.

Values – your internal compass



originally posted by Sandra at EDG

Begin with the End in Mind – Stephen Covey

So that’s your Goal specified and if Alice learnt anything in Wonderland it was that old cliché that if you don’t know where you are going it doesn’t matter which road you take.   So why do so many people get lost or give up on the way to their goals?

In life, there are many goals you could set for yourself and many roads to take to get you there. But before you can set meaningful compelling goals for yourself, you need to know not only where you want to go you need to know why you want to go there. If you clearly understand why you want to be somewhere, you are more likely to make sure your actions bring you closer to that place each and every day.

The Why – Values

According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, a value is something that has intrinsic merit, or is something that you rate highly while the Oxford English Dictoionary adds that values are principles or standards of behaviour that you judge to be important or right.  To have a true understanding of yourself, it is critical to identify your core values, for they are reflected in your behavior on a day-to-day basis. Values give you an internal compass and they help you to manifest the way you are in the world of work.

Why you need a mentor in your life this year

originally posted by Sandra F at EDG

It’s the first Wednesday of 2011  and by now some of you have broken the resolutions you made a mere 5 days ago. Goals of financial freedom or healthy living  and Dreams of Cindy Crawford sveltness may have already crashed and burned as you scoffed chocolate bars watching tv all night and spent up a storm in the January sales.

Mentors – everybody talks about them but does everyone need one? 

And if so, can you only have one and where do you find them?

Why solve Problems when you can just work around them and be viewed as a hero instead…

originally posted by Sandra at EDG

 New research this week from Anita Tucker at Harvard is exploring the issue of problems and how in some organizations the emphasis can be more on “hero solutions”  rather than problem solving.

Ms Tucker’s research identifies 4 distinct problem solving cultures (but focuses on “Work-around” cultures which are pervasive in some industries such as healthcare where heroes are always needed and may often be encouraged by grateful patients and families.)

 In “work-around” cultures employees will work around obstacles, often being lauded as a hero in the process,  but the underlying problems remain unresolved. The work around approach will be deployed based on the nature of the obstacle, which will be a combination of either tools/skills or rules and procedures based, and the level of awareness of the employee as to the problem.