How leaders kill meaning at work - McKinsey Quarterly - Leadership

As a senior executive, you may think you know what Job Number 1 is: developing a killer strategy. In fact, this is only Job 1a. You have a second, equally important task. Call it Job 1b: enabling the ongoing engagement and everyday progress of the people in the trenches of your organization who strive to execute that strategy. A multiyear research project whose results we described in our recent book, The Progress Principle,¹ found that of all the events that can deeply engage people in their jobs, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.

Even incremental steps forward—small wins—boost what we call “inner work life”.....More and to read the full article click here

Finding the right place to start change - McKinsey Quarterly - Organization - Change Management

Changing an entire large organization is never easy; only about a third of all such transformations succeed. One problem many organizations run into as they implement a change program is faltering momentum because employees just don’t change the way they work. Sometimes they don’t want to, and sometimes the reason is a poorly structured plan that makes change harder. Our recent experience at a European retail bank shows the benefits of starting to implement change by focusing on the employees who have the most influence over the daily work that needs to change. This approach can ensure that a successful transformation happens faster and that employees remain engaged in the long term.

This is a well researched article from McKinsey's. Whilst it is not ground breaking, it is worth a read just to remind yourself about what you do know about change.

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Colliding Towards Innovation - Forbes

Let’s look at the 2nd letter – C: Collisions. It originated in the early 15th Century as the Middle French collision from the same period of Latin collisionen, “a dashing together”. The definitions imply a variety of outcomes: 1) the act or process of colliding; a crash or conflict; 2) Physics: a brief dynamic event consisting of the close approach of two or more particles, such as atoms, resulting in an abrupt change of momentum or exchange of energy [emphasis mine]. While the first definition is rather violent, and innovation can arise from major clashes and conflicts, the 2nd definition is closer to type of Collision in #RCUS.

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A Formula for Managing On-Going Change - Booz and Co

Business transformation is now a continuous process most companies have not mastered. In this article from the well regarded Booz@Co strategy+business magazine, partners from Booz&Co offer a framework that can assist organisations in this vital process.

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Empowered Individuals and Empowering Institutions - Gary Hamel WSJ

In my last post I talked about the widening fault lines that run between individuals and institutions. Crack open the head of the average manager, and you’ll find a way of thinking that puts the institution in front of, or on top of, the individual. Represented graphically, the thinking looks like this . . . Model I: INSTITUTION –> INDIVIDUAL –> PROFITS The company hires employees to produce goods and services that yield profits for shareholders. In this model, the individual is to the institution what human beings were to the Matrix—raw material; factors of production hired to serve the institution’s goals. In real life, human beings aren’t plugged into machines, but they’re often plugged into roles that don’t suit them and jobs that don’t fulfill them. Usually, it is the individual who must conform to the institution rather than the other way around. If you doubt this, ask yourself what would you wear to work every day if there really were no constraints? What computer would you use on the job if you could pick any one you wanted? And what task or project would you tackle if you were free to choose?

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