Tag Archives: business

Communism is dead. Long live (corporate) Communism!

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in business, capitalism, future, human capital, knowledge, management, philosophy, society

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Communism

The sensible consensus is that communism became all but extinct with the end of the Cold War. I say it may be so, but the mindset that fueled it continues to live unhindered. Your next thought may be that I am referring to North Korea. But I have something much closer to home in mind: the U.S. corporate sector. Yes, you didn’t misread. I will dare to say that the mindset of the corporate sector in 2014 is eerily reminiscent of communist thinking.

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Business – a form of human expression

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in business, human capital, society

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The tagline “people are our most valued resource” has been so abused by the corporate world that it no longer means anything to anyone. I suspect that in the near future it will be eventually qualified as an offensive truism, and rightfully so. The sooner it disappears off the face of the planet, the better of humanity at large will be.

The debate on the humanism of business continues to be part of a public discourse infused with various degrees of political innuendo – see the 99% movement, the shareholder value argument, etc.

I propose a simple new take on what business is: a form of human expression.

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When competence is offensive

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in business, consulting, Crisis, management, problem solving

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I remember vividly a meeting that took place a few years ago. I was a management consultant tasked by the owner of a large corporation with overseeing the creation of a new profit and loss business unit. My nemesis was a Vice President who did not want to see his power and “territorial” claims diminished by the new venture. Typical power games and office politics were very much at play. The owner liked to delegate and had a “survival of the fittest mentality” to mediating conflict.

The three of us had gotten together because the named Vice President was overtly sabotaging my efforts. He was making the case to the owner that, while the idea of the new business unit was great, the consultant was poorly fit for the job.

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Strategy vs. Resilience

20 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by in business, Emerging Markets

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Back in 2006 I was part of Lockheed Martin’s strategy department. I had been with the company for 6 years, and had successfully graduated their 3-year long Leadership Development Program that groomed young professionals into future executives.

I would be traveling regularly to Europe, California, Florida and New York, overseeing a number of advanced research projects and international business partnerships. I was a firm believer in strategy, and the strategic planning process that was so carefully coordinated by smart, battle hardened people with white hair.

That’s when an idea took hold: would all my strategy acumen give me an edge in an emerging economy? Could I be a successful entrepreneur there as opposed to an employee in the U.S.?

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Introducing the World to Generative Management

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in business, design thinking, management, strategy

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Like yin and yang, human enterprise has two facets: closed-loop activities and open-ended endeavors. In management we call these two operations and strategy.

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Management consultants as educators

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in business, consulting, management

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I have heard my share of reservations about management consultants. Many see business consulting as a shallow field devoid of real substance. As the old saying about no smoke without fire goes, there is likely good reason for the distrust of this modern profession. The great Russell Ackoff himself distinguished between two types of consultants: self-promoting gurus and educators.

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Emerging economies insights: the in-sourcing mindset and its implications for business and economic growth

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in business, Emerging Markets, innovation, problem solving, society

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I’ve written before about the huge pool of abductive reasoning in emerging economies and the opportunity it represents for western multinationals. This piece will explore the negative implications of that same mental resource for emerging economies themselves.

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Empowering true talent

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in business, human capital, management, Organizational Development, Uncategorized

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“Managing” true talent is a misnomer. Subjecting the truly inspired to rules is akin to plowing fields with Ferraries – yes it might just work, but it sure is stupid. Use the talented rather for creating the recipes around which the hoards of less inspired can be assembled and scaled. In the same vein, don’t compensate the truly talented by the hour or with a fixed income: you would in effect incentivize them to limit their imagination. Strategy and vision are holistic products, they cannot be bought or measured by the hour, and don’t bow to quantitative rewards.

So then how can you empower the talented? Here’s a few hints.

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It is through strategy and invention that morality and profitability become symbiotic

21 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in business, capitalism, Organizational Development, society, strategy

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With Enron still in recent collective memory, business has not fully recovered its morality and ethics standing. And the 2008 financial crisis didn’t help, in fact lowering trust in the world’s business establishment. So the question of whether morality and profitability in business can be symbiotic is fair. I had not really formed an opinion on this issue until the very recent past, when several incidents in my professional life gave me no choice but to do so.

And so, having pondered the issue, I believe there is an answer that constructively transcends the growing divide between the pro-profit and anti-corporate, anti-globalization groups. In short, business success doesn’t have to be synonymous with immorality. The key to achieving a symbiosis between profitability and morality is in my opinion a combination of strategy and invention.

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