Organizational Design

A Benevolent Perfect Storm for Progressive Organizational Movements

April 16, 2009

Tweet “A Benevolent Perfect Storm.” Isn’t that a lovely image? It comes from David Ellwood, dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, as quoted by Steve Lohr in his NYTimes article “With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King?” Ellwood hopes that one outcome of the collapse of social and monetary incentives to take a […]

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Tools for Authentic Organizations: Dotmocracy

March 23, 2009

Tweet The end of “business as usual”   Please, let us be coming to the end of “business as usual”. Conversations about whether MBA programs caused the financial crisis and what the future of capitalism should be suggest that ways of doing business that have long been seen as acceptable and even admirable are now […]

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Flexible Downsizing and Sexism: Should we be worried?

March 10, 2009

Tweet There is a movement afoot to link organizations’ responses to the economic crisis to larger social goals, like sustainability and work family balance. Anytime we can get two valuable outcomes for one business decision, "that’s a good thing." Often, however, business decisions made for one reason have unintended repercussions. Take the movement towards alternatives […]

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Are Apologists for Layoffs Actually Just Bad Economists?

February 26, 2009

Tweet Here’s a post in honor of my friend Ian Ayres, a law & economics scholar who celebrates a big birthday today. Ian is constantly challenging academics of all stripes to stretch their thinking by asking themselves hypothetical questions. His favorite rhetorical tactic always seems to include two words: Why Not? Ian eschews any line […]

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An Agenda for Management Innovation: 25 Challenges

January 27, 2009

Tweet 1. Ensure that management’s work serves a higher purpose. Management, both in theory and practice, must orient itself to the achievement of noble, socially significant goals. 2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. There’s a need for processes and practices that reflect the interdependence of all stakeholder groups. 3. […]

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What if … Executive Compensation was based on Sustaining Organizational Authenticity?

January 3, 2009

Tweet I’m a big fan of linking compensation to business outcomes … as long as the amount of compensation isn’t vulgar and the right kinds of outcomes are part of the formula. So I was intrigued by a recent article about Ethics and Executive Compensation . Ed Konczal , writing about  over at Corporate Eye […]

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“What if you could buy social justice?” or Does ‘values shopping’ really make a difference?

December 15, 2008

Tweet Can for-profit, for-purpose organizations make a difference, if we patronize them? Thinking about an organization’s authenticity invites us to examine simultaneously what the organization does and how it does it. When we think about organizations being authentic, we assume that organizations have their business purpose — the thing that they’re out there to "do", […]

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Designing for Authenticity: More on the NY Jets

December 8, 2008

The December/January 2009 Issue of Fast Company has a lovely online slide-show of the NY Jets facility that follows up on the ideas in my post from September, on the 3 Things The New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity. ” The Jets demonstrate in their new facility ways that your organization can use its physical environment — the space where you put yourselves– to help it be more authentic.”

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…You can really see why New York  Jets EVP Sheehy would say: “Our building is the graduate school of football.”

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B Corporations and Employer Branding

November 27, 2008

Tweet Branding your organization as being "for purpose and for profit" might help you attract just the right kind of talented job applicants. At least that’s what the HR Folks at Reece Computer Systems seem to believe. In their job posting for a Consulting Engineer , Reece Computer Systems not only describes the position and […]

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The Case Against a Marriott Boycott: Marriott is not a Mormon organization

November 25, 2008

Tweet Many GLBT-rights and marriage equality rights activists are up in arms in protest against individuals, business and institutions that supported California’s Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage. Letters to prominent individual contributors, protests in front of churches, and calls for boycotts figure prominently in these activists’ efforts both to punish the individual, businesses and […]

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