Mark McDonald

Good question, tough answer.  Jim Collins provides ideas regarding the differences between good and great.  He discussed them at these years Gartner Symposium CIO Program in Orlando.  Collins, the best selling business author and advisor, has studied the differences between good and great companies and leaders for more than twenty years.  His books Build to [...]

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An enterprise tells its story in documents ranging from formal strategies to shared values embedded in the company culture.  One document in particular tells you much about a company – the organization chart.
Take a look at your org chart and you can see not only how work gets done, but also gain insight into the [...]

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Note:  This piece seems to have missed its posting.  Its part of a series on  Signs of Weak Management so please consider this as part of that series, just a little out of sequence.
All business is a people business to one extent or the other. Business effectiveness or dysfunction results in part from the strength [...]

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I was at an event a few weeks ago hosted by a leading IT journalist who made the following opening remarks.  “Good times are ahead for IT.  A new investment cycle should happen soon as we have postponed infrastructure upgrades for too long.”  His tone was upbeat and encouraging.  The only thing was that the [...]

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Process means different things to different people.  For some it is a four-letter word.  Something to be avoided.  Something that is bad.  Every organization is taking a fresh look at their processes as they look for new ways to raise performance.  This is transitioning views on process, its importance and its role in companies that [...]

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An attendee at the Gartner Symposium in Cannes last week handed me a piece of paper and said “write about this in your blog” so here goes.
The person did not give their name so I hope they see this post.
Question: In a world where we are faced with throwing away our people through outsourcing, how [...]

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Leading beyond tomorrow requires more than managing change.  It requires building people’s ability to change and that is the difference between change management and change leadership.  One of the techniques for leading beyond tomorrow I learned from Michael Doyle who unfortunately passed away in 2007 and is the author of Making Meetings Work.
Reflective reciprocity sounds [...]

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Lightweight technologies, those that do not require a heavy upfront investment or operational requirements, will meet many management and strategic applications needs.  Technologies, such as social computing and software as a service, give business unprecedented levels of choice in how they provision their technology.  Executives are making that choice not for back office commodity systems [...]

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NOTE: this post is a continuation of a prior discussion on Regulation 1.0.
Regulation 2.0 will be shaped as a direct response to the shortcomings of existing regulatory regimes, the potential of emerging technologies and the desire to incorporate state and non-state actors into regulatory regimes.
Regulation 1.0 is based on prohibitions defining the wrong things in [...]

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Proctor and Gamble and their Connect + Develop process for innovation is a leading example in the potential of innovation to restore growth and profitability.  Yesterday I was reading The Design of Business by Roger Martin that dedicates a whole chapter on P&G and its innovation process.
Latter that day I read an article in the [...]

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