Articles on Management

Pre-scripted interview questions are fine for topic ideas, but make the interview your own. Have a conversation instead of lobbing questions.

Without proper change management, any transformation you undertake is doomed to failure.

One of the most important roles of the CEO is to drive and shape corporate culture. Without a culture that fits the strategy, your business stalls.

Recently, my wife wanted to buy an item for her photography studio.  This particular item is something that you'd never think belonged in a studio...but

There are many challenges facing the IT function within the midsize organization. Actually, there are many challenges facing the IT function within all

Dark Data can arise in many ways. One way is via Shadow IT and the Data Disconnect

There are many ways to make coffee.   You've got your pre-ground coffee. You're pre-packaged coffee. Whole Bean coffee.  Self-roasted coffee.  Instant

Earlier this week I provided a rundown of my experience going through a sleep study in a post titled To manage it, measure it…but don’t destroy it in the

I'm a big believer in the mindset that you've got to measure it to manage it. If you can't measure something, its very difficult to manage that

A few months ago I wrote a post titled Cognitive Dissonance & IT. From that post, you'll remember that cognitive dissonance is: an uncomfortable

Lately, I've been having a lot of knee pain.  For the last few months, its been constant and regular and seemed to get worse when I would spend a lot of

I've been thinking about approaches to small business technology initiatives and whether it makes sense for small business to outsource a good portion of

I've just started reading Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (affiliate link) by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown.  Actually...I've only

I picked up Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh through the Amazon Vine program (love that program...free stuff to

My good friend, and partner at CIOEssentials.com,  Gene Delibero asks a few interesting questions in a post titled "Certification: No Guarantee of

I just finished reading "Managing" by Henry Mintzberg. Great book. What's so great about it?  It provides a good reminder that being a good manager is

I've got a few pet peeves.  Linear Thinking is one of them.  Another one is talking about doing something but never doing it. I'm not talking about 'not

This is a short one....lots going on this week. I got a lot of great feedback on a post I wrote titled "Consultants - Do we need them?".  In that post I

I ran across an interesting post today titled "Why you don't need Social Media Consultants" on the Brains on Fire Blog.  The main thesis of the post is:

Last week I wrote about "Turbulence, IT & The New CIO" and discussed the need to embrace agility and speed in order to address the turbulence that we

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. I just read a 'call

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. So you want to be a

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Earlier this week, I

“None” is Not a Social Media Strategy by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard Web 3.0 Is Coming – Are CIOs Ready? bt Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Today's CIO is

I was recently reading Dagmar Recklies' article titled What Makes a Good Change Agent? and started thinking about some of the people that I know who are

What happens when you create the best strategic plan in the world but don't have a plan to implement it? Lots of wheel spinning and very little progress.

Every team/group has a 'go to' person. You know...that person that you (and others) know you can count on to 'get stuff done'. You find yourself always

A few weeks ago I received a complimentary copy of Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager from Nick McCormick, the

This post is an excerpt (with slight modifications) of a recent paper titled “Project Selection using Decision Support Optimization Tools.” If you’d like

The Cutter Consortium blog has an interesting post titled "IT Trends and Antitrends for 2009".   Some interesting items listed...I've reproduced

Madoff Madness: When Smart People do Stupid Things by Charles Green on Trusted Advisor Associates Five Reasons to kill IT Projects on TechRepublic (hat

According to a research report released by The Hackett Group, and reported by Financial Week, they don't. The Financial Week article, titled "Customers

Steve Neiderhauser posted some excellent commentary in a blog post titled "Persuasion Equation".  In the post, Steve mentions a class he attended that

Would you rather have one great big idea or tons of little ideas? Me?  I'm fond of having a lot of little ideas. Why?  Little ideas are easier to

Management Issues (MI) reported today on a survey by Careerbuilder.com that says that many US workers are losing faith in their senior leaders.  MI

Timothy Johnson takes a swipe at methodologies in his post titled "Worshipping the Hammer".  To be more accurate, he takes a swipe at those people who

Peter Vajda has a great post over on Slow Leadership titled "Why People Resist Change" that is well worth the time to read. Peter argues that the reasons

Recently, while reading a book on Organizational Change and Project Management, I noticed a disturbing pattern. The book I was reading discusses the

A recent study by researchers at University of Michigan and University of Richmond shows that outsourcing/offshoring certain aspects of your business can

I've been holding off on this announcement until I finished the paper (mainly to make sure I actually finished it!). I'll be speaking at University of

Where I come from (small town Oklahoma), silos are part of life for dairy farmers.  A silo is a good thing...it stores grains (we called it sileage) to

In a recent posts, I've mentioned employee engagement (more on the topic here, here and here)...I've had a few emails from readers asking me to give some

If you'd like to know the answer that question, I have a new book for you to read: "Why Work Sucks" by Cali and Jody. This book (which I haven't started

Interesting analysis today over on Jeffrey Phillips' Thinking Faster Blog in an article titled "Productivity Barriers". Note: if you have an interest in

Heard a wonderful story last week from a developer friend of mine and thought I'd share (with commentary of course!). He had taken a full-time job at an

Timothy Johnson, author of the Carpe Factum blog (great blog...check it out), had an interesting St. Patrick's Day post titled "The Luck of the Irate"

In early March, Mind Hacks had an interesting article titled "Are you experienced? Does it matter?" which adds another wrinkle to my the argument I made

"Don't let perfect ruin good" That's what Harry Beckwith, author of "Selling the Invisible" has to say on the subject. He goes on to say the following:

I just read an interesting article at Tyner Blain titled "Specializing Generalists and the Politics of Agile"that is a good follow up to my "Better to be

Jeff Attwood over at Coding Horror wrote a great article titled "The Years of Experience Myth" that everyone should add to their 'must read' list. The

This post is a follow up to my post titled "Employee Onboarding". Research reported on a recent Management Issues article titled "How to lose half your

As some of you may have read in my previous post titled "I've been tagged...8 Random Facts", I used to lift weights and compete as a powerlifter while in

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately on Agile Software Development and Agile Project Management and have come to the conclusion that the folks

Five common hiring challenges — from writing job descriptions to onboarding — and practical ways to overcome them to attract and retain great people.

The April 2007 Harvard Business Review has an article by Steelcase CEO James P. Hackett titled "Preparing for the Perfect Product Launch" that discusses

Six keys to setting new team members up for success — from buddy systems to culture orientation — and what happens when managers skip onboarding basics.

When I first heard of participative management, I thought that it must be some 'new fad' (which isn't true at all) and after reading a few things about

A great story over on David Maister's Passion, People and Principles blog titled A Case Study In professional Ethics. Its a great story about integrity,

The Slow Leadership blog has an interesting post about "Practicing Conscious Incompetence". What is Conscious Incompetence? In a nutshell, it is the act

Do you ever take a break, step back and look at the world from your client's viewpoint? I suspect that many successful consultants do but I sometimes

Still continuing my reading on Agile Project Management and ran across W. Edward Deming's famous "Fourteen Principles of Management" again (for the

Mark Lefcowitz has written an interesting article that has been posted on ZDNet UK titled "How to fix IT skill shortages and misalignments" and

Don Blohowiak has a new post on his "Leadership. Now." blog titled "Endurance Reward" where he discusses the 'old-timer, high salary' issue within

David Maister posted another great article today relating to the almost relentless quest for corporate growth in todays marketplace. David writes: In most

In a 2003 article in Harvard Business Review, the article titled "The Five Minds of a Manager" written by Jonathan Gosling and Henry Mintzberg, the

An article on the British Computer Society's website titled "Companies claim formal IT qualifications unimportant" discusses a survey performed by IT