Tag Archives: Peter Drucker

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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Don’t fix Capitalism; realize its opportunities!

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in business, capitalism, human capital, innovation, knowledge, society

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Despite what you may be led to think when listening to heated political debates and cable news wise men, things are not that complicated when it comes to humanity’s predicament.

In a time when common folk and elites alike decry Capitalism and seem intent on going after it with pitchforks, I say we have yet to achieve it.

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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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A consulting industry first: strategy architected around complexity principles

25 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in complexity, consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, management, problem solving, strategy

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When people ask me what it is that I do, they often act surprised and sometimes suspicious upon hearing my answer: “I solve wicked problems with undefined parameters”; yes, really.

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Our creativity liquidity crisis

17 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in capitalism, human capital, problem solving, society, taxonomy

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The road from the Renaissance to the iPhone might have taken much longer had the world not invented modern banking and finance. Money, an abstraction of value, is indeed a necessary precursor to globalization. It is also the source of systemic crises when the abstraction loses touch with the underlying value as when sophisticated financial instruments become self-referential.

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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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Towards a unified theory of management

07 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in innovation, management, taxonomy

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Drucker-reading

Exploration vs. exploitation is a common thread amongst top strategy and management thinkers. Exploration is aimed at the future (strategy, innovation) while exploitation is more aligned with business operations, i.e. efficiency. Does this point to a unified management theory?

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