Management innovation is going to be the most enduring source of competitive advantage. There will be lots of rewards for firms in the vanguard.
In most languages, 'control' is the first synonym for the word 'manage.' Control is about spotting and correcting deviations from pre-defined standards; thus to control, one must first constrain.
As human beings, we are the genetic elite, the sentient, contemplating and innovating sum of countless genetic accidents and transcription errors.
Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it.
Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.
Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent.
The fact is, society is made more hospitable by every individual who acts as if 'do unto others' really was a rule.
Over the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines.
As the great grandchildren of the industrial revolution, we have learned, at last, that the heedless pursuit of more is unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. Our planet, our security, our sense of equanimity and our very souls demand something better, something different.
Truth be told, there are lots of companies that provide exemplary phone support. DirecTV, Virgin America and Apple are a few that regularly exceed my expectations.
An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety.
Like a child star whose fame fades as the years advance, many once-innovative companies become less so as they mature.
In most organizations, change comes in only two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Review the history of the average organization and you'll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change.
Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor.
While one should never underestimate the ability of risk-besotted financiers to wreak havoc, the real threat to capitalism isn't unfettered financial cunning. It is, instead, the unwillingness of executives to confront the changing expectations of their stakeholders.
Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane.
In an ideal world, an individual's institutional power would be correlated perfectly with his or her value-add. In practice, this is seldom the case.
Building human-centered organizations doesn't imply a return to the paternalistic, corporate welfare practices of the 19th century. Most of us don't want to be nannied.
At the heart of every faith system is a bargain: on one side there is the comfort that comes from a narrative that suggests human life has cosmic significance, and on the other a duty to yield to moral commands that can, in the moment, seem rather inconvenient.
It's important to remember that innovators in business don't always get a platform.