On the upper levels of management as well as in management literature, one will frequently hear the almost ritual complaint about the growing sluggishness of organizations, their lack of agility. […]
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Organizations need “context-managers”
How Purpose Drives Performance
by Jean-Philippe Courtois
“The two most important days of your life are the day you’re born and the day you understand why” – Mark Twain
Purpose matters to all of us: it’s a key factor in our physical and mental wellbeing. As humans, finding our ‘why’ is important. When we understand our purpose and live it, we make a positive difference to ourselves and to those around us, and we change the world for the better. It’s exactly the same for organizations.[…]
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Re-building business resilience through creative innovation
by Omar Valdez-de-Leon & Erica Moreti
After the recent events like the pandemic and conflict in Europe, with supply chains still recovering and ebullient inflation, the economic outlook for businesses has become more challenging. We’ve seen the direct effects on businesses: (1) higher operational and capital costs; and (2) weaker demand as consumers rethink their spending patterns. A key question for business leaders: Is it possible to innovate to build resilience in an era where cheap money is no longer available? The answer: Yes. […]
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Feeling our way through the changing world of work
by Alex Adamopoulos
This March, Emergn hosted an executive breakfast in partnership with the Global Peter Drucker Forum, featuring London Business School’s eminent Lynda Gratton and her latest book, Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organization and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone. It was nearly three years to the day since the COVID-19 pandemic took its grip, offices emptied practically overnight, and much of the world went into various degrees of lockdown.[…]
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In Trust, We Thrive
by Terence Mauri
The relentless twin demands of executing for today while reimagining for tomorrow, mean that leaders are grappling with an accelerated phase of business disruption, with more than $41 trillion of enterprise value at risk. But is enough being done to strengthen trust and creative resilience, which I define as the curiosity to learn and the courage to unlearn? Learning helps us evolve and unlearning helps us as the world evolves. […]
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Drucker at the Women in Tech Carnival
by Tanya Orlyk
No woman – no Drucker. Not only in terms of the physical body: his body of work was immensely inspired by women. When asked for a book recommendation, he would respond that any Jane Austen novel will do, since every Jane Austen heroine is a better manager and executive than any American CEO. […]
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Resilience and lean, just-in-time management
by Erhard Friedberg
In their well-known book A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, R. Cyert and J. March (1963) [1] proposed the notion of “organizational slack”, a notion central to their understanding of the firm as a coalition of competing and yet interdependent actors. This refers to (hidden) reserves (or redundancies) of resources which enable actors to escape the constraints that management imposes on their behavior in order to align and, possibly, optimize their performance with the overall objectives of the firm. […]
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Breathe, Quiet Your Fears and Exercise Some Discipline, courtesy of mentoring by Peter Drucker
by Rebecca Kerr
Have you ever felt conflict about a work request? When your boss asks you to do something and you have an instinctive response, that causes you to hesitate? Or a colleague you respect asks you to contribute your thoughts but outside factors give you pause, and you question whether you should or shouldn’t? […]
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Ed Schein : An influential management thinker
by Annika Steiber
Edgar Schein passed away peacefully at home after he and his son Peter had just finished a productive afternoon of work with organization development colleagues. He passed without illness or suffering, as he had always hoped he would. He was 94.[…]
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Burn-out love: Love hard, Work hard
by Guila Clara Kessous
It may not be coincidence that the International Day of Burn-out at Work on February 14 falls on Valentine’s Day. According to the WHO, burn-out is often linked to environmental factors such as work overload, relational problems, conflicts of values or micromanagement.[…]
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