Leadership Versus Management Fashions change, over the past twenty years we have stopped valuing management and started to value leadership. In an effort to promote leadership, businesses around the country have rechristend their “senior management teams” as “senior leadership teams”. I even worked for an organisation that insisted that all managers were called leaders, presumably […]
Are Your Human Resources an Asset or a Liability?
Theory X or theory Y? In the 1950’s Douglas McGregor proposed theory X and theory Y. He suggested that managers see their employees in one of two ways: Either — a cost that needs to be minimised and controlled Or — an asset that should be developed and valued It was an astute observation, but […]
A Bum Question
360-degree feedback Does my bum look big in this? If you have ever been asked that question, you know there are two types of answer. A right and a wrong one. The wrong answer has many variants… Yes — too brutal Try a bigger size — too honest I think it is the colour — […]
Outcome or Effort, Which Should You Reward?
You should praise your children Every parent will tell you that you should applaud your children. Praising them for a job well done and telling them how clever they are builds confidence and self esteem. Or does it? In 1990’s Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck of Columbia University decided to find out. The experiment The […]
How Netflix Reinvented H.R.
Harvard Business Review Patty McCord It would be wrong to hold one group totally accountable for an organisation’s culture, but I think the good people in H.R. have a big part to play. They set the rules that employees live by. If I am right and H.R. has such a powerful role, why do most […]