Last night Manchester Knowledge Capital hosted an event at Innospace on innovation – the presenter was Michael Cusumano from MIT. Michael presented the six enduring features of innovation – all of which can be found in his latest book, Staying Power. The talk was interesting, engaging and stemmed from many years of research into some of the most innovative businesses of our time. There are lessons to be learnt for businesses of all sizes about how you can focus on innovation as a core business activity – be flexible and think about scope, services and platforms of interlinked thought leadership and broad marketplace activity (i.e. not just products).
Continue reading ‘Innovation doesn’t always need big bucks – just big ideas’
Spending time with front line staff should be something all senior managers do. Not all the time, obviously, but frequently, wholeheartedly and with good intentions.
Yes, there will be regular reports from managers about what is going on and the odd social gathering might even unearth a few additional rumours but in order to have a full picture of your organisation, you really need to see it.
Better still, see it through the eyes of the people who work there day in, day out. In fact, in terms of the reality of relationships and their contribution to productivity and fulfilment, it’s the only view that matters.
Continue reading ‘Getting Down And Dirty With A Corporate Culture Smelling Of Roses’
Yesterday evening I was trying to help one of a group of incredibly capable postgraduates from Manchester Business School who have been working with us to refine his research questions for the next assignment in his master’s programme. Continue reading ‘Corporate Culture – I’ll just have a good one, please’
We have recently refined and published our overall 8-part characterisation of the main repeated themes we see across organisations of all shapes and sizes.
These are Corporate Culture as Fad, whereby leaders repeatedly become caught up in the latest trendy ways without seeing through anything to a worthwhile conclusion (if there is, indeed, anything useful to be taken from each of the successive fads).
Continue reading ‘Corporate Culture’s Never-Ending Journey’
