Logistics and Globalization – Have book will travel

I am currently living in Sweden. I ordered Dan Brown’s new book “The Lost Symbol” from Amazon.com, an online shopping site located in the US on September 2nd. The book arrived at my post office in Sweden yesterday, on September 25th, and it seems that it was shipped all the way from New Zeeland, even [...]

Read Full Post »

Leadership, The Lost Symbol and Noetic Science

Started to read Dan Brown’s new book, “The Lost Symbol” today. It talks about an intriguing concept called Noetic Science .
I have previously heard of a concept that states that anything the human mind can dream of or imagine exists somewhere in the universe. The concept of Noetic science takes this further and states that [...]

Read Full Post »

Incentives, Rewards & Motivation

Today at work we discussed what motivates people. What incentives and rewards can the company and it’s managers provide in order to motivate the employees to work harder and perform better?
Here is the list we came up with:

Bonus
Career Ladder
Challenging Tasks
Christmas Party
Coffee
Coffee Cups & Branded Material
Company Car
Corporate Brand
Corporate Values
Credit Card
Culture Societies
Delegated Responsibility
Encouragement & Coaching
Facilities
Fear
Feedback
Fruit
Gift Certificates & [...]

Read Full Post »

Growing a Forest of Ideas

The world is full of management quotes and proverbs, be they inane or insightful.
A few examples:

“The leader follows in front!”
“Management must manage!”
“If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.”
“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
“A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.”
“Management works in the system; Leadership works [...]

Read Full Post »

Walking While Talking

Many people feel the need to walk around while talking on the phone. This may be due to the fact that they have a kinesthetic learning style. In order to learn and think properly, these kind of people may feel the need to have their legs moving beneath them.
Standing up or walking around has [...]

Read Full Post »

Personalized Processes?

Do we need personalized processes? The question seems to defy common sense. A personalized process is the antithesis of what corporations have been striving for, for so many years. I thought we all agreed that processes should be standardized, uniform, one size fits one problem type of solutions? So what’s this about personalization?

Grocery Store

When it [...]

Read Full Post »

Crowdsourcing

We’ve had outsourcing. We’ve had offshoring. We’ve had insourcing. Now we have crowdsourcing.
One of the points of crowdsourcing is that the community is the corporation. But how is that going to work in practice? You can give a prize to someone who helps you discover a new site to drill for oil or dig for [...]

Read Full Post »

Getting Results

In any given situation there are only three decisions that can be made: productive, unproductive or counterproductive. These decisions will lead to positive, ambiguous or negative results, depending on the perspective of the person observing the results.
A leader is expected to make productive decisions that lead to positive results. In such a situation, perspective is [...]

Read Full Post »

It Does Matter!

If you can execute a process successfully in more than one way, should you? I define a process as an activity with predictable inputs and predictable outputs that can be repeated within a defined area of tolerance.
One of my colleagues said today, “You can do it either way. It doesn’t matter.” I disagree, it [...]

Read Full Post »

Partial Obervations?

So, what is a partial observer anyway? Partial means part or incomplete. But it can also mean biased or prejudiced. To observe is to see, watch, perceive, or notice. At least that’s what Dictionary.com says.
To me, being a partial observer means that I am subjective in interpreting what I am perceiving with my senses. I [...]

Read Full Post »