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• Lessons in Bad Management: Felix the Flying Frog
  I first heard the parable of Felix the Flying Frog in the early 1970s. It appears in many places nowadays and its author is unknown. I think its staying power owes to the many points it illustrates – some subtly and some not so subtly. It has great
• Getting from Losses to Commitments: The Change Acceptance Cycle
  The purpose of this post is to review The Change Acceptance Cycle shown in Figure 1 and to extract from it some pointers for managers caught up in organizational change. The Change Acceptance Cycle Let’s start in the upper left, with a common form
• Corporate Culture: A Case of Monkey See, Monkey Do?
  Did you ever wonder how your company’s culture – that set of beliefs, traditions, and behavioral norms that determines “the way things work around here” – came to be? Or why, when you try to change it, it seems so resistant
• From Start Up to Shut Down: The Rise and Fall of an Organization
  Most people agree that organizations have a life cycle; that, like people, they pass through some identifiable stages. Some see seven stages, some see as many as eleven. All agree that movement from one stage to the next must be managed. Failure to do
• Strategy IS Execution: Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot
  Things don’t always turn out as planned. This is especially true of strategy. The strategy you contemplate or envision and that same strategy as it plays out are often two very different matters. Strategy as realized is the result of efforts to
• Five Ways Leaders Screw up their Change Initiatives
  The reported failure rate of change initiatives is about 70 percent. It ranks right up there with reengineering efforts (and for many of the same reasons). The success rate of change initiatives could be greatly improved if those who launch and lead them
• What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 2
  Introduction As I indicated in Part 1 of this post , there are similarities between solving the fire control problem and solving business problems. The basic problem and the basic process are almost exactly the same: hitting a moving target and the absolute
• What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 1
  Introduction Surprisingly, the answer to the question in the title of this post is “A Lot!” Shooting down an enemy airplane is done by a weapons system that solves what is known as “the fire control problem.” What I learned about
• The Urgent Should Displace the Important
  Layoffs and job losses in recent times have resulted in a significant – some might say punishing – increase in the workload facing many working people. Millions of people have lost their jobs but their work didn’t leave with them. People
• Understanding Your Company's Performance Architecture
  Responsible Management Practice We all want to be able to say with some degree of confidence that a given action will produce a given result. Conversely, we also want to be able to say that a given result requires a certain action. Our success depends
• How to Make Decisions like Benjamin Franklin
  Introduction Benjamin Franklin described his well-known decision-making process in a letter to Joseph Priestley who had asked Franklin’s advice about a vexing decision. Essentially, Franklin’s process is a matter of listing the Pros and Cons
• Does Process Stifle Talent?
  I came across this internal Netflix presentation on freedom & responsibility as a business culture on TechCrunch this morning and it struck a cord with me and many others. The most interesting part for me (and presumably the rest of my organization
• How Org Charts Will Help All Departments in Your Business
  Departing employees can have a tremendous impact on an organization – especially if the employee is one of the “Top Dogs.”
• Is Your Organization Built to Last?
  Built to Last contains all of their research, analysis, and conclusions and I wanted to discuss some of the points that are highly relevant to what we’ve discussed at Working Smarter.
• Visuals versus Text: What Makes You Say “A-Ha” Faster?
  In a previous entry, “Why Communicate Visually,” it was asserted and backed by scientific study that communicating visually is a far easier and quicker way to comprehend both simple and complex information for 8 out of 10 people. Skeptical
• Four Tips for “Beefing Up” Your Problem-Solving Tool Box – Part Four
  This is part four of a four-part guest post contributed by Fred Nickols , Managing Partner of Distance Consulting LLC. All four parts focus on improving your problem solving efforts. Tip #4: Draw pictures of the structure of the problem A picture or model
• What Happens When the Top Dog Leaves?
  Departing employees can have a tremendous impact on an organization if it is not properly prepared and equipped to handle it – especially if the employee is one of the “Top Dogs.” How the departure affects your productivity Ready or
• Four Tips for “Beefing Up” Your Problem-Solving Tool Box – Part Three
  This is part three of a four-part guest post contributed by Fred Nickols , Managing Partner of Distance Consulting LLC. All four parts focus on improving your problem solving efforts. Tip #3: Think of problem solving as a “cover-the-bases” activity Information
• Four Tips for “Beefing Up” Your Problem-Solving Tool Box – Part Two
  This is part two of a four-part guest post contributed by Fred Nickols , Managing Partner of Distance Consulting LLC. All four parts focus on improving your problem solving efforts. Tip #2: Be clear about all of your goals and objectives Ultimately, the
• Four Tips for “Beefing Up” Your Problem Solving Tool Box – Part One
  This is part one of a four-part guest post contributed by Fred Nickols , Managing Partner of Distance Consulting LLC. All four parts focus on improving your problem solving efforts. Introduction Problems come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. There is
• Five Ways to Jumpstart Your Organization’s Creative Process
  Ideas make money, and thus we should make time for ideas . As valuable as brainstorming is, most of us don’t have the luxury of spending hour after hour sitting in meetings scrawling ideas down on scratchpads and whiteboards. Although we should always
• Ideas Make Money. So Make Time for Ideas.
  We all know that as a manager you are strapped with a finite amount of time to perform so many activities in a day, week, or month. In this unstable economy most managers are doubling their efforts due to a shrinking team and limited resources. As costly
• Everyone in Your Organization Should Understand Marketing
  People tend to incorrectly equate marketing with advertising – and believe that marketing is just this thing that some slick cologne-splashed creative types do in order to get people to notice an organization and its products or services. Although
• The Four Most Common Marketing Mistakes Every Manager Makes
  Mistakes result in lost business, time, and resources. Nobody is perfect, but it is everyone’s responsibility to minimize errors and make the best decisions possible. Below are examples of routinely made poor decisions and big picture blunders that
• How to Prevent Mistakes Before They Happen
  Over this past quarter my team at SmartDraw worked on a slew of new and experimental initiatives – nobody had any truly applicable prior experience with this particular type of work. As a result there was confusion amongst the team regarding responsibilities