I met my wife Laurie at the ORSA-TIMS conference in St. Louis in October, 1987. ORSA is the Operations Research Society of America and TIMS is The Institute of Management Science. Sounds really exciting doesn’t it? As a successful management consultant with a Ph.D. in operations research, Laurie was there to discover what was new in her profession. As a professor, I was there presenting papers on organizational change and transformation. What started out as a professional meeting turned personal and became a marriage of theory and practice – literally and figuratively.
Why tell you all this? Because Laurie and I have a commitment to making management something that actually makes a difference for people. There are volumes written on and about management and leadership. Literally thousands of books and articles from both academics and practitioners. Some of them are very good, but many of them aren’t. As a professor, I have the opportunity to read much of the academic literature on management, though I must admit, there is more there than I can or care to read. Some of it simply doesn’t make any difference. As a management professor who trains MBAs, I need to know what will work, not what might work or what sounds good theoretically. Now, I like a good theory as much as the next professor, but my students and the mangers I train are more discriminating and want things that will help them today, as well as tomorrow.
The only way to determine if something really works is to put it into practice, and that’s where our marriage of practice and theory comes in handy. Laurie says she practices what I preach. I say I preach what she practices. Working together, we have developed unique and powerful tools and ways of thinking about management that are theoretically rigorous, yet highly pragmatic and effective. For years our clients and students have benefited from what we have learned about management and leadership and from our thoughts regarding existing theories and practices.
Now it’s time to expand our audience to include people who are not in our classes or meetings. By creating this blog, I am looking to expand what I can learn and provide about management and to learn from more people too. In short, I want to expand our marriage of theory and practice to include you, so management becomes something that is both easy to apply and makes a difference for you. Welcome to my blog, I look forward to learning with you.
Nice intro, Jeffrey…and what a great combination you and Laurie are!
I came directly from the link in the Great Managing newsletter, so you jumped successfully into this social marketing pool/lake/ocean! Next is Twitter…
Best wishes on getting started, and I’m looking forward to many more good reads!
Janine
What a powerful way to begin your blog. I have learned much from you and Laurie for over a year now, and have to say that few newsletters are as deserving as yours of careful consideration, month after month. Thanks for your invitation to begin a dialog here.
Art Kleiner reminds us in The Age of Heretics of Kurt Lewin’s famous line: “Nothing is so practical as a good theory.” Which begs the question: What is gained in the Faustian bargain of bad apple tolerance? Should we be looking for problem recognition and strategy here, or rather to isolate the bad actors and lead them to transformation?
Should we wait longer for what to do while organizations and populations struggle in the social and economic detritus of bad apples? Do we not have enough evidence on good behavior and good financial practices to take serious issue with the abusers; and give them not only policies and support teams that can encourage and lift them up, but hope as well, for happiness and sustainable wealth?
I mean, do we think those bad actors are happy people? Do we believe we strengthen organizational performance by anything less than an offer for immediate professional help? Has society ever won sustainable value from negotiations with terrorists?
When I look at developments in neuroleadership and our accelerating knowledge of the ecology of organizational life and economic performance (see Beinhocker’s The Origin of Wealth), I am amazed at how tenaciously the world clings to failed policies and terrible practices still based upon the discredited ideas of great man leadership. It is time to move on, to teach true caring and courage from kindergarten on, and to take personal responsibility for our organizations, and our nations.
Get the bad apples some help—and stop making more!
For readers who wonder about Steve’s reference to “bad apples”, it is in reference to the article we wrote in our Great Managing newsletter on Working with Bad Applies in which we discussed the work of Professor Will Felps on people who are chronically disruptive to group processes and performance.