Michele Zanini

Friday links, April 9

Next time execs at your company say "innovation is a top priority," show them this tweet: Want to know why it is so hard for big companies to innovate? Read the classic paper "On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B” on the power of bad incentives:

If you're serious about purpose at work, you must flatten the hierarchy

Unless we change our organizational DNA, purpose-filled work will be remain largely confined to the managerial elite.

Links

Friday Links, April 2

US employment is recovering, but we're still a long way off pre-pandemic levels for most occupations. Good U.S. employment numbers today, as @DanielAlpert described in a great Twitter thread today: Good JobsDay (and Good Friday). We at @jobqualityindex expect that the restoration of private sector low-wage/low-hours jobs, wiped

Management Processes

How to Fix the Performance Review-Once and For All

A few notable exceptions aside, the performance management process in most organizations is broken. It's time to end this.

Links

Friday links, March 26

Note: during the course of my research--and, tbh, time-wasting on Twitter--I come across a variety of sources that are interesting to me. This post is an experiment to see whether you might also find them useful as well. If so, I'll make this a regular feature. Please drop me a

Leadership

The remarkable elitism of corporate learning curriculum

Some remarkable examples of how we don't even try to equip most people to fully contribute to their organization.

Skills and Training

You can't reinvent workplace learning unless you rethink your organization

If you want to update workplace learning for the 21st century, you need to update your organization as well. Without that, you'll be stuck in the AFTP- Another "Fine" Training Program-mode. As usual.

Entrepreneurship

A few unicorns will not create a dynamic and innovative economy

The world’s unicorns, VC-backed startups worth more than $1 billion, have been getting a lot of press over the last five years. All this excitement about the unicorns is understandable — they underscore the promise of new technologies and the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. Unicorns also represent a threat

Digital transformations will likely increase centralization and executive power

A quartet of management academics (Phillip C.Nell, Nicolai J. Foss, Peter G.Klein, and Jan Schmitt) just published an interesting paper suggesting that "digitalization" of business will lead to an expanded role of HQ and more power and involvement by execs, rather than encouraging more decentralized forms of management.

Management Data

Americans' satisfaction with big business cratered in 2021

Gallup just published the results of its annual poll gauging satisfaction with various aspects of American life, including its institutions. Not surprisingly, the numbers are generally lower relative to the January 2020 batch. What's striking, however, is the collapse of satisfaction with the size and influence of major corporations. Respondents

Managers and Administrators Employment Tracker

Updated monthly based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "Employment Situation" report. .container { position: relative; width: 100%; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 100%; /* 1:1 Aspect Ratio */ } .responsive-iframe { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: none; } .container { position: relative; width: 100%; overflow: hidden; padding-top:

Management Data

2020 was a very good year for the managerial and administrative class

The latest occupational data suggests that bureaucracy's footprint in the US economy has never been greater.

Changing how we change

The promise of digital tools for organizational "hacktivism"

Employees can now aggregate their influence, skills and passion to form powerful horizontal coalition for proactive change. How can we encourage this happens at scale?

Management Economics

Top economists don't think large executive salaries reflect current contributions to firm performance

Executive compensation has less to do with current contribution to firm performance and more to do with efforts to move up the corporate ladder.

Management Data

In investment in workplace training declining? Evidence from the UK

Despite the reskilling hype, large-scale survey data from UK shows training days and spend are in decline.

Management History

Mary Parker Follett on Community, Creativity, and Control

Mary Parker Follett's perspective on the creative power of collaboration, how to effectively manage interdependence and diversity, and the nature of influence and authority in organizations that are more relational than hierarchical.

Mgmt Throwback Thursdays

Hackman & Oldham's Job Characteristics model

For this week's Management #ThrowbackThursday, I bring you Hackman & Oldham's Job Characteristics model. Developed in the 1970s, it challenged the prevailing attitude that jobs should be simplified to maximize efficiency: As part of their research, Hackman & Oldham also identified key enablers, including knowledge and skills, which will come

Video

Build Change Platforms, Not Change Programs

Traditional approaches to change are bureaucratic at their core--and that's why they fail. We need to a new model for organizational change, one that's bottom up & horizontal, embraced, and emergent.

Book

Freeing the Human Spirit at Work

The experience of the post-bureaucratic rebels testifies to a single luminous truth: an organization has little to fear from the future, or its competitors, when it’s brimming with self managing “micropreneurs.”

Leadership

Large-company CEOs spend 3% of their time with customers

So much for the notion of the CEO as the "seer in chief"

Learning from the Vanguard

Southwest Airlines: Freedom to Delight the Customer

Frontline teams at Southwest Airlines know they have the freedom to do whatever it takes to serve the customer. It’s this freedom, rather than a set of protocols, that allows Southwest employees to create memorable moments.

Toxic Assumptions

"When we take away all decisions from employees, they no longer feel accountable"

This is taken from Peter Cappelli's new article in the September-October edition of the Harvard Business Review. “When we take away all decisions from employees, they no longer feel accountable.” https://t.co/Cs5MvRbOzD — Harvard Business Review (@HarvardBiz) August 31, 2020 The fact that this quote is relevant in

Changing how we change

Changing How We Change

You can't evolve to a post-bureaucratic model using a bureaucratic approach to change.

Book

Introducing my new book, Humanocracy

I've spent the last 5+ years writing a book on creating good jobs and resilient organizations. Here's a quick summary and overview

Changing how we change

Harnessing Everyday Genius

How Michelin devolved to its frontline teams the power to make a difference