Blog. Insight, issues, opinions and productivity solutions

New Insight Article: Lessons From the First Decade of Knowledge Management

Posted on March 5, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was very fortunate to hop on the KM bandwagon long before it became a bandwagon, before it was a trend or a buzzword, before it was even called Knowledge Management. This forced me to really think about what it really was all about; and it gave me the opportunity to share this thinking with others who were leading the exploration of this new territory. Today, 17 years and many projects later, I observe that most people don’t look beyond the Knowledge Management hype; entire organizations fail to address the layers below the obvious immediate aspects of KM. Thus, although.. Read more

Rosh Gadol: How You Can Manage for Initiative and Get Away With It

Posted on March 3, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

What on earth is Rosh Gadol? These are terms that every Israeli knows, and like much Israeli slang they come from the army: Rosh Gadol (literally, a large head) – a person who sees the bigger picture, takes initiative, and goes beyond the immediate task at hand or the orders given to ensure that the end goal is achieved. Rosh katan (a small head) – one who obeys instructions literally and avoids any initiative beyond their exact wording, often to the detriment of the intended mission. In Israel Rosh Katan is usually used pejoratively; in a culture known for its.. Read more

Radical Email Overload Solution: Batching Email Delivery

Posted on February 19, 2013 · Posted in Individual Solutions, Organizational Solutions

One of the worst causes of information overload is the constant arrival of email into the knowledge worker’s attention sphere. With new mail arriving every few minutes, people can never fully focus on their work. If they haven’t turned off the “you’ve got mail” alerts they are passively distracted; if they have, a sizable fraction of users still distract themselves by checking for new email every few minutes. What is needed is a way to prevent this checking. A radical email overload solution concept Over my years of helping companies fight information overload I’ve devised my share of original solutions;.. Read more

New Insight Article: The Makings of a Good Corporate Telecommuting Program

Posted on February 12, 2013 · Posted in Organizational Solutions

Some companies think Telecommuting means letting employees work from home. They’re wrong.  Telecommuting does involve working from home – but there’s a lot more to it, and many companies don’t realize what it takes to do it right. Of all the changes in workplace methodology that I’ve led at Intel, the one I’m proudest of is the Telecommuting program. Because we’ve done it right, resulting in a true Win/Win for the company and for countless employees in it. What made it such a success was the fact that we didn’t just allow people to work from home as individuals; we.. Read more

How You Should Listen to Your Employees

Posted on February 4, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Every respectable large company does Organizational Sensing. This is usually driven by the HR group, as a structured, formal process. It might include annual Organizational health surveys, Sensing interviews with a sample of employees, Focus groups, and so on. All of which is useful; it can spot major problem areas, and yields interesting data that can be used at many levels, from raising management awareness to defining solution interventions. All of which does not exempt you, if you are a manager at any level, from doing your own sensing, and doing it right – by listening to your employees. How.. Read more

How Communicating Across Company Lines Can Help Your Career

Posted on January 28, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Check out my guest post on the Leader Communicator blog: Why and How to Communicate Across Company Lines Have you tried to communicate with your peers in other organizations lately? In this post I consider the importance of doing so, as I’ve been doing throughout my career, and I discuss the barriers posed to this important practice by corporate culture and inertia; I then share some experience on how to overcome the barriers without coming into harm’s way. But go ahead and read it over at Leader Communicator blog!  

How Information Overload and Hyperactivity Destroy Leadership

Posted on January 21, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Guest Post by Ian Price The recent temporary departure of Antonio Horta-Osorio from his role at Lloyds Banking Group was unusual in the candid use of the ‘S’-word – “stress” – in the bank’s announcement. For any number of reasons, leaders, their boards and investors are keen to avoid the word as part of the narrative in a leader’s exit. However, there have, in the last year or so, been a number of sudden, unplanned chief executive resignations that the press has attributed – at least in part – to stress. These include Masataka Shimizu of Tokyo Electric Power, Jeff.. Read more

The Case for “Internet Glue”: Why We Need a Stable User Experience!

Posted on January 17, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

A sorely needed product Here is a winning product I sometimes dream of producing: I call it Internet Glue. What is it, you ask? Well, it’s for use when you have a web site or a software application that works great, that you find truly useful. You pour the Internet Glue on it, and when it hardens it keeps the site or application just as it is, so it can’t change, so the user experience you love abides. Get it? What it’s good for Why do I want this admittedly fanciful product? Why, to fight that bane of computer tools:.. Read more

The CIO Role and Driving Innovation: Gap or Opportunity?

Posted on January 14, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Ask yourself: is the CIO a driver of Innovation in your enterprise? The gap: are CIOs missing the Social Media boat? The MIT Sloan Management Review recently published results from a survey of business executives, managers and analysts from organizations around the world, aiming to understand how companies apply Social Media. I was intrigued by the following excerpt: 48% – Percentage of CEOs who believe social media is important or somewhat important to their business today. 24% – Percentage of CIOs who believe the same thing. Now, in general it’s a good thing that CEOs have more vision; standing on.. Read more

Reduce Information Overload Using Brilliant Email Etiquette

Posted on January 10, 2013 · Posted in Individual Solutions

Guest Post by Dr Monica Seeley Information overload and its sibling email overload continue to plague most business users.  Indeed although the latest figures for sick leave have been falling, the incidences of stress related illness have risen. Information overload and email overload are major contributors to stress related illness.   Our brains just cannot cope with the volume of information being  pushed at us, through email and now social technologies.  It has been suggested that we are now bombarded through these channels with the equivalent of 174 newspapers per day! In the case of email, a major problem is actually.. Read more