As a reverse fairy tale for the CEO set, the reality television program Undercover Boss is fascinating, not so much in the witness-to-a-train- wreck mode of the rest of the genre, but because it is so revealing of our conflicted relationship with "the boss." The premise of the show—that the only way to get a clue about what's really going on in his (or her) organization, is for the boss to go undercover on the front lines—is all too often the actual reality in organizations of any size. Yet, at the same time, the view of the boss as the ultimate authority with the heroic power to swoop in and save the day—whether that means paying down a mortgage, granting an instant promotion, or banishing a reviled policy—holds sway in real life as well as on "reality" TV.
Tech companies have unleashed the creativity latent within their organizations through “hackathons” - intense ideation events where teams of professionals move quickly from idea to prototype.
One enduring change in the management lexicon brought about by the dotcom revolution was the term business model —how a firm makes money. The concept had been in existence for decades, but the competition between "old" and "new" economy firms, with very different business models, helped to...
Agility requires us to rev up the frequency of our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team. As the world continues to rev up, we must rev up with it, to handle t
Every organization talks about team work and how important team work is to continue to win in the competitive markets but when it comes to walk the talk most of these organizations fail. My visio
The model of the single powerful leader who operates through command and control is attractive in its simplicity. This model of leadership often gets reinforced in the media, as well as by demanding shareholders. In reality, it is impractical to expect the single leader to have all the answers, and...
We are delighted to announce the winners of the Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge (the second leg of the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation) today.
