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Why Don't Managers Think Deeply? — HBS Working Knowledge

A since deceased, highly-regarded fellow faculty member, Anthony (Tony) Athos, occasionally sat on a bench on a nice day at the Harvard Business School, apparently staring off into space. When asked what he was doing, ever the iconoclast, he would say, "Nothing." His colleagues, trained to admire and teach action, would walk away shaking their heads and asking each other, "Is he alright?" It is perhaps no coincidence that Tony often came up with some of the most profound insights at faculty meetings and informal gatherings.

This story captures much of the sense of the responses to this month's question about why managers don't think deeply. The list of causes was much longer than the list of proposed responses. But in the process, some other questions were posed.

Ben Kirk kicked off the list of reasons for the phenomenon when he commented, "… what rises to the top levels are very productive and very diligent individuals who tend not to … reflect and are extremely efficient at deploying other people's ideas," implying that this type of leader is not likely to understand, encourage, or recognize deep thinking in others.

Adnan Younis added the possibility that "… managers are not trained for it." Dianne Jacobs cited the possibility that persisting assumptions borne out of success serve as "roadblocks to act on needed change" (proposed by those who engage in deep thinking?).

Ulysses U. Pardey, whose comment triggered my recollection of Tony Athos, wrote that "Time-for-thinking is a special moment which can be resource consuming and an unsafe activity …" (Fortunately, Athos held a tenured position in an academic organization.)

A number of comments alluded to the triumph of bureaucracies and large organizations over deep thinking. As Lorre Zuppan said, "I think Jeff Immelt's efforts to protect deep thinking reflect a nice sentiment but … If his team could carry the ball, would he need to announce that he's protecting it?" Tom Henkel was more succinct: "There's a name for managers who think deeply—entrepreneurs … B

Tags: management, change, critical_thinking on 2008-07-14 and saved by7 people -All Annotations (1) -About

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John Tropea: “tools are the conduit for this culture change”

Tags: change, culture on 2008-06-25 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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4 challenges to wiki adoption in organizations: #1 high-level resistance

The 2007 Horizon Report: Toward a Research Agenda

The annual Horizon Report, a collaboration between the New
Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI),
highlights six technologies that the underlying research suggests will
become very important to higher education over the next

Tags: research, alan_levine, elearning, change, nswlearnscope07, fromdelicious on 2007-08-29 and saved by6 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Did You Know video

video that helps raise awareness of the issues raised in Thomas Friedman\'s book, The World id Flat.

Tags: change, technology, video, teachertube, fromdelicious on 2007-03-29 and saved by6 people -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.teachertube.com

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