People really love to deify the internal culture of tech companies
Everyone seems to want to work in Silicon Valley (to some extent). Continue Reading
Organizational Behavior
In organizations, does decentralization generate experimentation?
Here’s interesting stuff from three economics / business guys — one from Stanford, one from Harvard and one from London School of Economics (the entire thing sounds like the beginning of a joke, right?) — about decentralized authority structures and… Continue Reading
Would you prefer a male boss or a female boss?
Answer for me personally? Female. I’ve had both, and I think females are easier to deal with. There’s a tendency towards wanting to be Type-A / alpha among a lot of guys, especially when they become managers. That might explain… Continue Reading
Could urban physics significantly impact organizational culture?
This is pretty interesting. Just like social physics has cropped up as a concept recently (especially as regards health care), now something called “urban physics” is cropping up, specifically at MIT and NYU, among other university locations. The basic idea… Continue Reading
Leadership is really about soft skills
Leadership might be the most important ambiguous word in the English language, right up there with something like “culture.” There are so many different theories about it — from Blue Ocean to a focus on humility — and so many books (entire sections… Continue Reading
Salary.com survey: 54 percent of people are “happy at work,” yet 23 percent of people look for a new job “every single day.” Wait, what?
There are employee engagement survey things almost every day — I’ve written about a ton of them over the time I’ve had this blog — and there’s a new-ish one now from Salary.com. You can click through it — it’s done as… Continue Reading
Jack Dorsey (from Twitter, Square) sent this e-mail in 2012 about authority and merit. People should take it as corporate gospel.
You may have seen this already — if not, here’s what happened. Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and is now running things at Square (that little thing on top of iPads that you can swipe your credit card through, for… Continue Reading
Brief thought exercise: in reality, does your job need to exist?
Are you doing something that really moves the org forward, or are you there to represent how fast the place is growing? Continue Reading