The Age of Organizational Effectiveness -- hosted by Charles Chandler

The elephant comes with risk. There is an elephant in the C-suite. It has been there a long time, but it has blended into the background and few have questioned its legitimacy or presence. The elephant I am referring to is the goal-setting process, that is, the way that management sets the direction going forward. … Continue reading 092 – The elephant in the C-suite →

Gary Hamel (London Business School) characterizes management as the technology of human accomplishment. It came into its own in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the USA entered the new century. Among the traditional long-standing factors of production (land, labor, and capital) in the British tradition, management became the fourth, the one that helped … Continue reading 091 – Measurement, meaning, and validity in management →

If you are a manager of an organization, whether business, government or non-profit, you currently have a hand in managing capitalism. In a very real sense, you are the visible hand of managerial capitalism. Free market capitalism is long gone. Adam Smith’s invisible hand of market forces is largely absent today, except where commodities are … Continue reading 090 – We all manage capitalism now, so let’s agree to fix it →

Given the significant pressures on firms in the real world, what do we know about the traits, characteristics, or management approaches that help ensure that a firm can and will survive within its environment? Some might think this is a difficult, if not an impossible task, given all of the variables at play. Nonetheless, we … Continue reading 089 – The Keys to Firm Survival →

For most of the history of management (beginning in the mid-1800s), organizations included command and control structures and top-down information flow. Managers were viewed as the boss, the big cheese, the man, or master within a hierarchical system of control. This is an authoritarian model of organization, where management drives the organization as a machine, … Continue reading 088 – Management as servant, not master →

Anthropologists tell us that anatomically modern humans (i.e., Homo Sapiens) emerged about 300 thousand years ago during the Pleistocene era on the African savannas. For over 95% of their history (until the present day), modern humans have been exclusively hunter/gathers, that is, they explored the bounty of nature in small bands, adapting their behavior as … Continue reading 087 – Back to the Pleistocene →

Worker productivity is the output of goods and services per hour worked. In the broad terms of an industry, productivity is the gross output of industry sales divided by the number of workers allocated to produce the output. After World War II, worker productivity in the USA improved significantly due to the investments made by … Continue reading 086 – Why does worker productivity remain low? →

Peter Drucker predicted in his 1959 book, The Landmarks of Tomorrow, that the most valuable assets of a 21st Century institution (business or non-business) would be knowledge workers and their productivity. In this episode, I explore this idea, and how it has played out (since we are almost 60 years downstream from Drucker’s prediction). Not … Continue reading 085 – We are all knowledge workers now →

If we need fresh evidence that management is broken, we only have to look at the 2017 numbers on worker engagement from Gallup. Only 21% of employees strongly agree that they are managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work. Overall, 33% of US workers report that they are actively engaged with … Continue reading 084 – Three reasons management is broken (but can be fixed) →

In this episode, I interview David Childs, Ph.D., who is the author of The Organization Whisperer: The 12 Core Actions that Ripple Excellence through your Organization. Join us as we explore key areas of focus for any organization. The twelve core actions described in the book are: Communication; Worth; Purpose; Family; Decisions; Plan; Do; Measure; Processes; … Continue reading 083 – The Organization Whisperer →