Innovation Snobbery is Not Serving Organizations

By Michelle Malay Carter on December 2, 2007 

Harvard Business Online has posed the question, what is management?s role in innovation?? I ask, what isn’t management’s role in innovation? Executive management?s role is to ensure that it institutionalizes the?expectation that managers will lead the continuous?improvement of their teams AND that time is allotted?for them to lead?improvement initiatives.? Innovation should be an expectation of […]

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Executives Wash Their Hands of System-Level Accountability for Employee Engagement and Managerial Leadership

By Michelle Malay Carter on November 28, 2007 

I saw an article entitled, What does Leadership Development have to Do with Employee Retention?? In it, there is a list of what direct reports want from their leaders.? It is not much different than anything I have said here: 1. A clear and definite objective. 2. Resources needed to get the job done. 3. […]

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Systematically Poisoning Employee Engagement

By Michelle Malay Carter on November 19, 2007 

Before we were aware of the existence of bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells, disease was thought to be a curse from God.? Sick people were told sickness was their fault and the resolution of the issue was up to them.? As such, the remedies of the day included repenting, praying, and making peace with the […]

Filed Under Accountability, Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization, Talent Management | 5 Comments

Why Isn’t your Boss’s Boss Firing Your Bad Boss? More System-Level Issues

By Michelle Malay Carter on November 18, 2007 

I’ve read quite a few articles lately advising unhappy employees to “fire their boss”.? This is easy for the employed to say, and it makes career gurus feel like they are helping disenchanted employees by empowering them.? It is a valid coping strategy for individuals, but it doesn’t address the system-level issue that caused the […]

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Why is Succession So Badly Managed? A Globally-Thought-Provoking Subject

By Michelle Malay Carter on November 6, 2007 

I made a comment to a CEO succession post on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge entitled, Why is Succession So Badly Managed? My comment was no more?brilliant and certainly not as detail-rich as many I have posted here, but I have seen a substantial spike in global traffic driven by my comment.? Many of these […]

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Will Executives Listen to their Employees via Towers Perrin?

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 24, 2007 

You’ve heard the phrase, living well is the best revenge?? I must say it does bring a smile to my face when organizations pay me, as an external consultant, several times what I was making as an internal consultant?to say the same things they reviled me for saying while working inside an organization. In that […]

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Rethinking Accountability – Because the Hog Won’t Butcher Himself

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 23, 2007 

The?Nobel prize in economics was just awarded to a team that developed Mechanism Design, i.e. a design for arranging economic interactions so that when everyone behaves in a self-interested manner, the result is something we all like.? This includes the idea of Incentive Compatibility, i.e. the concept that way to get as close as possible […]

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Could You Hire This Man?

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 17, 2007 

?Imagine?your luck.? Bill Gates has applied for the open project manager position within your division.?? During your interview, he?explains that he’s a little bored with the philanthropic life so he thought he’d head back into the corporate world.? Thrilled with your luck; you ask very?few questions before offering him the job.? You agree to a […]

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Looking for Leaders – No Personality Required

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 12, 2007 

Leadership: the ability to set purpose or direction for others and then get them to move along in that direction with competence and full commitment –Elliott Jaques. Within organizations, leadership is an accountability of all managers. Leadership ability could fall into the hands of an intuitive, a senser, an extrovert, an introvert, a thinker, a […]

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Taking the Judge Out of Judgment

By Michelle Malay Carter on October 3, 2007 

Work* is the exercising of judgment and discretion while trying to achieve a goal.? When judgment is removed, you no longer have work, you have computation ? something a robot or computer could do.? Organizations hire people to do work.? Interestingly, we hire people to make judgments, and then, whenever possible, we try to take […]

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