Leadership & Business Wisdom

Feedback: Key to Continuous Learning To know one’s strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do – are the keys to continuous learning. Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of …

Managing Oneself: Revolution in Society Managing oneself is based on these realities: Workers are likely to outlive organizations, and the knowledge worker has mobility. Managing oneself is a REVOLUTION in human affairs. It requires new and unprecedented things from the …

Society of Performing Organization “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Society in all developed countries has become a society of organizations in which most, if not all, social tasks are being done in and by an organization. Organizations do …

The Function of Management Is to Produce Results Above all management is responsible for producing results. Management has to give direction to the institution it manages. It has to think through the institution’s mission, has to set its objectives, and …

Organizational Inertia All organizations need a discipline that makes them face up to reality. All organizations need to know that virtually no program or activity will perform effectively for a long time without modification and redesign. Eventually every activity becomes …

Limits of Social Responsibility “It is not enough for business to do well; it must also do good.” But in order to “do good,” a business must first “do well.” Whenever a business has disregarded the limitation of economic performance …

Common Core of Unity There has to be a “common culture” or at least a “cultural affinity.” Successful diversification by acquisition, like all successful diversification, requires a common core of unity. The two businesses must have in common either markets …

Business Not Financial Strategy “There ain’t no bargains,” and “You get at most what you pay for,” Successful acquisitions are based upon business plans, not financial analyses. Acquisition targets must fit the business strategies of the acquiring company; other wise, …

Resource-allocation decisions The allocation of capital and people determine whether the organization will do well or poorly. The allocation of capital and performing people converts into action all that management knows about its business – they determine whether the organization …

EVA AS A PRODUCTIVITY MEASURE Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it does not create wealth, it destroys it. Measuring total-factor productivity is one of the major challenges confronting the executive in …