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1 – 10 of over 1000The author argues that the model for the management of the U.S. economy and businesses – one that assumes that they can be run like machines –is producing outcomes that neither…
Abstract
Purpose
The author argues that the model for the management of the U.S. economy and businesses – one that assumes that they can be run like machines –is producing outcomes that neither were anticipated nor are desired.
Design/methodology/approach
The model of a perfectible machine needs to be supplanted by a model of a complex adaptive system in order to turnaround the performance of the economy and its companies.
Findings
In businesses, unrestrained pursuit of efficiency has had an unexpected and unintended effect.
Practical implications
One important way to design for complexity is to adopt multiple internally contradictory proxies for success.
Originality/value
Offers a critical insight for corporate leaders: The U.S. economy is not a perfectible machine: it is a complex adaptive system. Companies are not perfectible machines: they are complex adaptive systems. To produce better outcomes, leaders need to design for each element – complexity, adaptability and systemic nature.
Jennifer Riel and Roger Martin
The authors translate their the concept of integrative thinking into a repeatable methodology, supported by a set of tools for thinking through difficult or “wicked“ problems, a…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors translate their the concept of integrative thinking into a repeatable methodology, supported by a set of tools for thinking through difficult or “wicked“ problems, a process that offers a better chance of rejecting false choices and of finding a way through to an innovative alternative.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors divide their process into four phases. A case example illustrates each phase.
Findings
The four phases that make up the integrative thinking 10;process: articulating opposing ways to solve a vexing problem; analyzing those opposing models to truly understand them; attempting to resolve the antithetical approaches of the opposing models by creating new models that contain elements of the original alternatives but are superior to either one and testing the potential new solutions.
Research limitations/implications
Additional examples and detailed guidance is provided in the authors new book “Creating Great Choices: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking,” (Harvard Business School Press, 2017).
Practical implications
Several corporate examples of “wicked” problems to which integrative thinking might be applied are: After a merger, the combined sales organization is riven by dissension between proponents of two opposite approaches – one using direct sales and the other channel partners. The CEO of a retail bank struggling to manage the conflicting goals of increasing efficiency and improving customer service.
Originality/value
Applied thoughtfully, this new and tested methodology gives leaders at all levels a fighting chance at solving challenging problems and creating breakthrough choices.
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As design becomes more important for business, designers and business people need to work together more. However, they tend to find the relationship difficult, challenging and…
Abstract
Purpose
As design becomes more important for business, designers and business people need to work together more. However, they tend to find the relationship difficult, challenging and less productive than either side would wish. The purpose of this paper is to help both designers and business people work more productively with one another.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper identifies the underlying schism between validity, which is favored by designers, and reliability, which is favored by business people, as the source of the relationship conflict. It then uses the key attributes of validity and reliability to form recommendations for each side to deal better with their counterparts.
Findings
There are five practical and actionable things that designers can do to work better with business people and five equivalent things that business people can do to work better with designers.
Originality/value
Currently, neither business people nor designers have a productive or coherent theory as to why their counterparts behave in ways that appear to them to be unproductive. To fill the theory gap, they tend to think badly of their counterparts. This paper provides both sides a productive theory of the other and a prescription for utilizing the theory to promote more productive collaboration.
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Atul Handa and Kanupriya Vashisht
Traditional paradigms of leadership have celebrated decisive top-down control and analytical decision making. But times are changing. The world is becoming more connected…
Abstract
Traditional paradigms of leadership have celebrated decisive top-down control and analytical decision making. But times are changing. The world is becoming more connected, complex, fluid, and interdependent.
Leading people in this age requires empathy, collaboration, curiosity, and creativity. It’s more about designing elegant solutions than mandating feasible ones. It’s more about becoming optimistic beacons of change than authoritative custodians of the status quo. The leaders of tomorrow are not commanders, they are innovators; and in that, they have a natural ally in designers – the poster children of innovation.
This chapter focuses on how leadership can leverage tools and frameworks usually associated with design to innovate, solve complex problems, motivate teams, inspire people, and nurture the next generation of leaders. It discusses design methodologies – user-focused design, lean, design thinking – as potential approaches to optimizing organizational leadership. We elaborate these ideas through real-world examples.
The chapter also offers actionable tips and techniques that designers use to respond empathetically and elegantly to complex human needs, which are rooted deeply in behaviors and attitudes, governed by complex interactions, and therefore, hard to grapple through a purely analytical approach.
It debunks the myth that leaders need to be creative similar to designers to apply Design Thinking. Applying design approaches and practices to organizational leadership is not just about its leaders becoming more creative. It is definitely not about the person at the top coming up with the grand answer. It is a collaborative effort that brings people from all levels together in pursuit of a common goal.
The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with professor and noted author Roger Martin discussing three major topics— the future of capitalism, better executive…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with professor and noted author Roger Martin discussing three major topics— the future of capitalism, better executive decision making and innovations that boost customer value – all at the heart of current executive concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents Martin's view, – that modern capitalism has come through two major eras over the last century, managerial capitalism (1930s to 1970s) and shareholder capitalism (1980s to 2000s). He argues that the time has come to embark on a new era, the era of “customer capitalism” and explains why.
Findings
In answer to another set of questions, Martin provides his own insight into one of the management field's most elusive and intriguing questions: what is the essence of outstanding leadership, particularly at the CEO level? His research has led him to the finding that exceptional leaders are distinguished most by the way they think, by their capacity for what he calls “integrative thinking.”
Practical implications
To a third set of questions, Martin offers his own solution to one of the major challenges facing senior executives today, how to become more innovative, not only in products and process, but also in the area of business management itself. His answer – executives should look to the concept of “design thinking” and learn how to apply it more widely to processes like strategy development and business model innovation.
Originality/value
Roger Martin believes that the shareholder value system has been rigged to the detriment of stockholders, that great managers are distinguished by how they think before they decide what to do and that design thinking is a key competitive competency. Martin offers groundbreaking ways to think about leading and management.
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“On its current path, American democratic capitalism is, I believe, heading for an ugly fall.” So warns Roger L. Martin in his new book, When More is Not Better: Overcoming…
Abstract
Purpose
“On its current path, American democratic capitalism is, I believe, heading for an ugly fall.” So warns Roger L. Martin in his new book, When More is Not Better: Overcoming America’s Obsession with Economic Efficiency. Professor Martin has been concerned for some time now about the capability of the American capitalistic model in its current guise to deliver continued prosperity for the many and keep the American democratic dream alive.
Design/methodology/approach
Martin sees a serious problem in how the benefits of the American economy and its corporations are distributed; this has been shifting for some time now from a largely Gaussian (widely spread) to an increasingly Pareto (narrowly spread) pattern.
Findings
The shape of this distribution is getting ever more extreme, leading to a situation in which the richest families in the country are reaping a wildly disproportionate share of the benefits of economic growth. This kind of distribution tends to be self-reinforcing and that is not consistent with a well-functioning democratic capitalist system.
Practical implications
The actors within the system will keep adjusting to any change in the rules of engagement, and the tendency for them to keep “gaming” the system should be anticipated as both natural and inevitable and provided for accordingly. Breaking the company into subject-matter siloes has little chance of helping the company prosper. It tends to cause independent pursuits of efficiency that don’t add up to effectiveness.
Originality/value
The author of 11 books, Professor Martin has been ranked at the top of numerous lists of the world’s best strategic thinkers, and is a seminal contributor to the design thinking and integrative thinking movements. In his writings he seeks “to develop a new understanding of the broader public conversation around shared and sustainable prosperity, an essential piece of democratic capitalism.” A long-time consultant to major global firms, he offers insights for corporate executives.
– Provides an interview with Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works
Abstract
Purpose
Provides an interview with Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works
Findings
In the following interview, Roger Martin discusses his relationship with Peter Drucker, how to formulate an effective strategy in complex times, and reflects on his time as Dean of Rotman School of Management.
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