A radical people policy… from 1937
Read moreWriting these past few weeks about leaders who eventually come to the conclusion that business is mostly a people game has caused me to wonder why more start-up ventures don’t think about this from the outset. After working with a wide variety of entrepreneurs in the past twenty years, I can safely say that many of them would have avoided
Powerful stories about ‘putting people first’
Read more“We put our people first.” These days, such declarations have become somewhat banal, simply because they are so pervasive. Companies and managers talk of their desire to hire the best “talent”, and to develop their human resources. Or, they declare that the employees are the organizations’ most critical resource, that they will always come first, and so on. Of course, many
Jack Welch and “the people game”
Read moreI referred last time to an assertion of one of my business school professors, back in 1983, that we tend to focus on “hard” stuff in our schools of management. Only later, when we have years of experience as managers in organizations, do many of us come to the realization that the “soft” stuff—human behavior and people management—matters more. As he
It’s a people game
Read moreA few days before graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1983, I was sitting in a quiet corner of the student café with my classmate Jim Collins, ruminating over issues of life and future prospects. In walked Don Palmer, who had been our professor one year earlier in “Introduction to Organizational Behavior”. Don stopped for just a
A great leader writes a new story: example
Read moreOne of my favorite Brazilian proverbs says “When we dream alone, it is just a dream. But when we dream together, it is the beginning of a new reality.” My view of organizational storytelling is similar. When a leader has a vision for the future, it is only a vision. When the leader’s vision becomes a co-created story with the followers, it is
The longterm impact of Steve Jobs?
Read moreMuch of my life for the past two decades has involved leaders and their personal and organizational storytelling. Consequently, one of my favorite quotes on leadership is from Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn: “A good leader brings results. A great leader writes a new story.” When I consider the achievements of Steve Jobs from this perspective, I wonder how history will judge his