The Cranky Middle Manager Show #312 The Future of the MBA Ken Starkey
Posted on 09. Feb, 2012 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today we look at the top five Human Capital Issues of 2012- in other words, what keeps companies up at night when it comes to their people. We talk to Jay Jamrog of I4CP about his latest research on the top Human Capital issues for 2012. We also discuss the meaning of Realpolitik, who invented it and why you should care. You have to know what the boss is thinking or you’re in for some ugly surprises. Just sayin’….
If you’re going to use WebEx, GoToMeeting or any of those tools, don’t you want to use them well? At GreatWebMeetings.com we teach you the skills to present, sell, train or manage your team using web presentation tools. We offer programs in How to Create and Manage Remote Teams, Web Presentation Basics and Leading Effective Virtual Meetings. Drop us a line for pricing and more information.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Today we look at the first of our 4 Disciplines of Highly Effective, Leadership Exhibiting, Project Nailing, Cheese Moving Managers. In an effort to improve our business acumen, we dedicate this episode to Ludwig von Rochau. He invented the term Realpolitik which should be a mandatory part of any leader’s education. The law of the strong is the same as the law of gravity….. it’s immutable and ignoring it leads to bumps and bruises.
5:00 The quote of the week is from James Russell Lowell, who understood that you can’t argue with the wind, you just have to button the hell up.
5:55 Welcome Jay Jamrog to the show. Whether you like the term “human capital” or not, it’s really important to understand what the people with the checkbook think is important. Turns out there are 5 of them: Leadership development, managing/coping with change, talent management, managing organizational change, succession planning.
8:50 86% of companies say leadership development is critical, but only 26% actually do it very well. What the heck is that about? Notice that low performing companies worry about things like getting people engaged and managing performance. Coincidence? Don’t think so….
14:27 Knowledge retention is a huge issue…if people are coming and going, how do you capture what they know so it doesn’t walk out the door with them? 43% of the civilian workforce in the US is ready to retire. Worried yet?
19:20 How has the move to virtual and remote workers impacted the approach to human capital? The biggest change is in how do you lead a virtual team? (Yes, we can help). People in the office don’t trust the people who are remote, and vice versa.
23:25 What about HR? Jay says they should be measuring effectiveness rather than efficiency. HUH??
26:09 Everyone is talking about innovation, but what are good companies doing about it? The better companies say it’s important and only getting moreso. It also usually doesn’t work. The 5 key things are: know what you mean by innovation (the type), you have to have leaders who will accept a creative workforce and take risks, you have to have the right talent, you have to have a culture that supports change and welcomes it, and you have to have an external focus to keep tabs on the customer.
Check out I4CP and their reports here or drop me a line and ask for a copy of the report.
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The Cranky Middle Manager Show #312 The Future of the MBA Ken Starkey
Posted on 31. Jan, 2012 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel talks to Ken Starkey of Nottingham University Business School about the future of the MBA and what business schools think is the next big thing for leaders. We also discuss the biggest problem with learning a new language, whether the old soviet spies could have benefitted from WebEx, and the usual collection of snarkiness and good conversation.
If you’re going to use WebEx, GoToMeeting or any of those tools, don’t you want to use them well? At GreatWebMeetings.com we teach you the skills to present, sell, train or manage your team using web presentation tools. We offer programs in How to Create and Manage Remote Teams, Web Presentation Basics and Leading Effective Virtual Meetings. Drop us a line for pricing and more information.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show, ni hao and all that good stuff. Today we are talking about the future of education, and so we dedicate this episode to Alexander Semyonovich Feklisov who ran the spy network out of New York after the second world war. Training adults is hard enough, imagine when it’s literally life and death. Also, he got less than his reward for political reasons, a lesson for us all.
4:55 The quote of the week is from Denis Diderot. 200 years ago he worried there were too many books to find the good stuff in…. imagine how he’d feel with the internet.
5:45 Welcome Professor Ken Starkey to the show. We spoke on the old Working Week podcast (click the link to hear that discussion). What is the mood in business schools today? Sounds like a lot of navel gazing and analysis is going on ….except when they think they can go back to business as usual. Did the way MBAs are taught lead to some of the economic crisis and bad behavior?
8:47 Is business necessarily “red of tooth and claw?” What’s the alternative? It seems the information was limited to formulas and data, not to leadership and ethics.
11:10 Is this an Anglo-Saxon mindset that got us in trouble? Genghis Khan and the Medicis weren’t WASPS. Certainly the US and UK caused most of the damage and other cultures have weathered the storm better.
13:07 there are three schools of thought as to the direction of business education: 1) B School is a servant of business and is the way it’s been the last 30 years, 2) Bschool has to face the implications of the crisis and deal with leadership, ethics and values and 3) somewhere in the middle. Is part of the problem with the way it’s been is treating business as education, rather than a “soft science”?
18:43 Does the cost of an MBA impact how people react to it and what they do with it? Is there a change coming in the need for an MBA or even what’s covered so that it won’t be as expensive?
21:00 If Ken had the magic wand, what would he envision the graduate education experience focus on? He’d add philosophy, sustainability and law. Lots of law. Is the function of business to be the agent of shareholders? Art and design would also be part of the curriculum. What should you look for in a B School?
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #311 Serial Innovators Claudio Feser
Posted on 25. Jan, 2012 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel talks to author Claudio Feser about why some companies innovate, some die and take their managers with them. We also talk learning Mandarin in the face of sheer terror.
If you’re going to use WebEx, GoToMeeting or any of those tools, don’t you want to use them well? At GreatWebMeetings.com we teach you the skills to present, sell, train or manage your team using web presentation tools. We offer programs in How to Create and Manage Remote Teams, Web Presentation Basics and Leading Effective Virtual Meetings. Drop us a line for pricing and more information.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. No dedication today because i’m pressed for time. I’m also scared because i step inside the classroom today as a learner for the first time since about 1982. Yes, I’m trying to learn Mandarin for no other reason than I’ve always wanted to learn it and it’s time I did something for my brain.
3:48 The quote of the week is from Eugene S Wilson. Education is both a quest and a requirement. The quest part is infinitely more intriguing.
4:15 Welcome McKinsey Director Claudio Feser to the show. He’s the author of “Serial Innovators- Firms That Change The World”. Innovation is a crucial part of business, but most businesses don’t do it very well. In fact, the average life cycle of a firm is only 15 years. why?
9:45 How do best practices and systems become rigid and kill innovation? How can so many smart people do such dumb things?
13:41 Hierarchies aren’t bad in and of themselves, but some are better than others. It turns out that product or niche teams work better than functional silos.
17:12 So what about our personal rigidity? Why aren’t people better innovators? Some of it is our mental models and biases (the dreaded paradigm word). Some of the problem is a lack of “self-efficacy” or confidence. Why do smart people freeze in their tracks when trying something new?
24:03 Becoming a role model for confidence and innovation isn’t easy. It requires giving and receiving constant feedback and recognition. Nobody said this would be easy. There’s also some brain science behind this, and you know how this show loves brain science.
27:35 The main thing people have to do to innovate is to take our mind, heart and guts to work. It’s amazing what people can do when they actually care about more than their personal execution.
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #310 Marshall Goldsmith Talks Leadership
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by Wayne in General, Podcast
today, Wayne Turmel has a candid and casual conversation with Marshall Goldsmith about his being named one of the top 50 Business thinkers in the world. How did he get there, and what’s the state of leadership today? Also we talk cockatiels and working from home. You also have a homework assignment so pull up an earbud and join us.
If you’re going to use WebEx, GoToMeeting or any of those tools, don’t you want to use them well? At GreatWebMeetings.com we teach you the skills to present, sell, train or manage your team using web presentation tools. We offer programs in How to Create and Manage Remote Teams, Web Presentation Basics and Leading Effective Virtual Meetings. Drop us a line for pricing and more information.
If you manage remote teams, don’t forget to check out the TheConnectedManager.com blog. New content twice a week!
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show. Something a little different today. You’ll hear Byron the cockatiel in the background which leads to an assignment. Serious question for you: do people have different expectation of people who work from home than those in the office? Post to the blog, drop me an email or tweet me with your response.
5:45 From Eugene Delacroix- what makes people geniuses isn’t necessarily saying something new, just trying to make what’s been said before make sense…..
6:45 Welcome Marshall Goldsmith back to the show. He was recently named to the Thinkers 50 as one of the top business thinkers in the world. Modesty aside, he’s a pretty big deal in the field. What’s the connection between leadership and business? At the end of the day it’s about people and people are just people.
9:35 What was the idea of leadership when he entered the business and how did he get into coaching the most important people in the world? Oh, he gives a shoutout to Jim Kouzes who has been on this show before, most recently here.
12:15 Many of us think of “military leaders” but we don’t understand how the military really works. There’s a difference between the military and combat. The talk then turns to Peter Drucker. Do you know enough to tell your people what to do? Then wy do we do it?
14:30 Ever wonder how Marshall go to be “executive coach to the stars”? Here’s the story…And once again he explains why he’s not as surprised at their lunacy as the rest of us seem to be. He also explains why business does what business does and we ought to just get over it.
20:20 If people are going to be good leaders they need internal motivation, then they need a structure and process. We discuss what use training really is. This is worth a listen.
24:35 What’s the most useful structure or process we need to get ourselves in line? Marshall recommends just asking yourself active questions, instead of passive ones. this is also why Employee Engagement consulting is largely flawed and I agree wholeheartedly.
29:45 Shameless plug time. If you haven’t checked out his library of free resources do so . His Buddhism is a gift to you. He also says some very kind things about me and this show. Watch for this quote somewhere soon….
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