I've long been a fan of Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway's talent for skewering corporate speak and the hubris that lies behind it. Her Martin Lukes columns were gems of satire, illustrating ways managers should never behave through the squirmingly embarrassing -- though hilariously entertaining -- Blackberry missives of a fictional British marketing exec in the would-be "Masters of the Universe" mold.

Her Monday column in this week's FT is a timely (given the season) contrast of awful and somewhat-better ways to deliver bad news in corporate memos. The first obscures the bad news of 1,400 layoffs at State Street in a chorus of chest-thumping pomposity about the company's invincibility, while the second delivers a clear and honest explanation of why a senior executive is leaving Gawker.

"Two memos divided by understanding " is worth a read over at the FT's site. (Free registration required.)

Tim O’Reilly is well known as a publisher, a venture capitalist, and a technology evangelist. His ability to clearly explain the significance of evolving web technologies on our organizations, our markets, and our governments led us to seek out his thoughts on the way that these changes affect management. We've invited him to become our newest Maverick at the Management Innovation eXchange.

In his most recent conversation with us , Tim talks about how decision making is shifting from the center -- where we usually find it in a traditional command-and-control organization – out to the edges. We’ve read about this before, perhaps most notably in the writings of John Hagel and John Seeley Brown, Jr., who talk about the intelligence at the edge of organizations and how to make best use of them to keep organizations nimble and evolving. Our conversation with Tim built on that idea and explained why that shift of authority should be coupled with an ability to measure the impact of decisions, to understand the feedback, and to revise action based on what the data is telling those edge decision makers. In other words, shifting decision making from a central...

It wasn't easy to choose a winner in our latest Tweet-a-Hack contest. Apparently, Increasing Trust is a fairly straightforward objective, one that lends itself to the 140-character format just fine.

As I noted in my post last week , at least five themes came through clearly:

In the end, we chose a favorite from among many good entries, a good one tweet from Alex Todd:

@TrustEnabler: 1. Celebrate vulnerability; 2. Admire authenticity; 3. Insist on integrity (honor yr word); 4. Champion EVERY stand

We were impressed with Alex's ability to squeeze four good ideas into a single tweet, as well as with the passion with which they came through. Personally, I'm intrigued by his first suggestion ("celebrate vulnerability"), which I hope he'll elaborate on in a future post. It's probably no surprise that Alex took this prize: as the founder of Trust Enablement, Inc., he's clearly focused on the matter at hand.

As I noted, there were many other good ones, among them tweets that urged managers to walk the walk...

@KJanig: trust = practice what you preach.

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If you answered yes to any of these, we want you to share that success. (And if not, you're not alone, and.you've come to the right place!) Fear paralyzes and mistrust demoralizes. That's why one of our Management Moonshots is "Increasing Trust." The old command-and-control systems reflect a deep mistrust of employees' commitment and competence, overemphasizing sanctions as a way to force compliance. But employee engagement, which is critical for success in today's dynamic and demanding markets, thrives in high-trust, low-fear cultures. Leaders who want their organizations to compete successfully in the 21st century must find a way to ensure mutual trust among employees and their managers.

We want to hear from you. How do you create a workplace where employees feel safe enough to speak their minds, experiment, and question? How do you take "engagement" and "empowerment" from buzzwords to the operating reality in your organization? How do you, in the words of our...

Was there more to Mark Hurd's exit from HP last week than the claims of sexual harassment and expense code improprieties? In his Talking Business column in Friday's New York Times , Joe Nocera digs deeper into the reasons for the decision by HP's board to send their CEO packing. Hurd led a remarkable turnaround at what became the world's biggest computer company under his stewardship, making HP what Fortune write Adam Lashinsky called "the benchmark for efficiency in an industry known more for its whiz-bang appeal than its operational excellence.” So why was the board quick to end his tenure?

Nocera suggests that, in addition to bad feelings dating back to HP's pretexting scandal in 2006 (when it pursued corporate leaks with excessive zeal), Hurd's lack of support from those he managed may have contributed to his downfall. He writes,

"Then there were the company’s employees. The consensus in Silicon Valley is that Mr. Hurd was despised at H.P., not just by the rank and file, but even by H.P.’s top executives. ... 'He was a cost-cutter who indulged himself,' was one description I heard. His combined compensation for just his last two...