Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to “lead”, influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.
The chairman of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc – the biggest company no one has ever heard of – is one mysterious man with good reasons for staying out of the limelight. The 61-year-old ‘hidden billionaire Cohen’, has transformed C&S into the world’s largest grocery wholesaler since taking the helm of the business in 1989, making him one…
Background: From 1987 until 2009 I was CEO of Interbake Foods, a food processing company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. We competed in four business segments: Girl Scout cookies, contract manufacturing for branded companies, private label cookies sold to retailers, and baked ingredients for ice cream processors (primarily ice cream sandwich cookies and cones). Interbake had…
ByTED
Behavioral economist, Dan Ariely reveals why the dismal science of economics is not as firmly grounded in actual behavior as was once supposed. And, in this TED talk, he examines the motivations behind our drive to work. In doing so, he presents two eye-opening experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our…
Those of us who are familiar with Continuous Improvement programs have undoubtedly heard references made to a “burning platform”. We have come to understand that this is a metaphor for a crisis situation and, along with it, the sense of urgency that is necessary to effectively react and overcome the crisis. If you “Google” the phrase “burning…
The success of improvement programs in most organizations not only impacts their competitiveness, but in many cases also their survival. Programs like Operational Excellence, Lean Transformation, Process Re-engineering, Cost Reduction, etc., are launched with a lot of fanfare, but sadly, they either die an unnatural death after some time or become painfully slow. Much care…
I wrote the first version of this article almost a year ago and, since then, I have had several people remark to me that it has helped them a great deal (which is the point, I guess.) I have also had several people give me some new ideas and, of course, I have had time…
