Is there a place for feelings in the workplace? Has a misunderstanding of feelings brought more harm than good into our workplaces? Do we even know what feelings are? Do they bear advantages that managers and employees canleverage on? The first part of this discourse attempts to provide us an understanding of feelings in the workplace. From the book, Organisational Behaviour Real Research for Real Managers by Jone L. Pearce is presented an excerpt from the article Making Sense of Feelings at Work: Why would managers need to worry about squishy stuff … [Read more...]

Financial due diligence alone isn’t enough. People due diligence is the make or break lever. Almost all mergers fail to produce intended business results, experts say. Studies indicate that several companies fail to show positive results when it comes to mergers. Researchers estimate the range of failure to be 50–80%. After so many corporate marriages, the world having gone full circle, are now asking the one wise question “Why do mergers and acquisitions fail”? What does it take for a company to be successful, post merger? Success or failure of … [Read more...]

We have less than a hundred days to the close of the banking sector consolidation programme. Someone may say, “What really is the fuss over this particular exercise?” Let’s get it over with and talk of other things”. I submit that next to the governance of our dear country, this is the other thing we have to do and do right. There are real challenges ahead and CEO’s may have lost sleep. It may not be a good prayer to wish to be a bank CEO at this time. Obviously the banks seeking to kidnap wealthy acquirers have migraine already; considering that the … [Read more...]

You have never seen a vacancy ad with such a title and there is good reason for that – it is because no one would dare declare that they are looking to employ robots instead of human beings. But if you take a second look within governments, parastatals, churches, educational institutions, companies, committees (in short everywhere) what you see is that Presidents, CEOs, leaders, managers, supervisors are more comfortable with employees or members who do what they are told . . . someone who you can bet would always agree with the majority. In essence a … [Read more...]

Organizational learning rises and falls on the personal learning orientation of its leaders. It is until we institute continuous searching and learning as a personal pursuit before we can underscore its importance in the corporate world. Well, herein lies a challenge. In today’s fast paced world people say they have become too busy (or too distracted) to even read. So how is learning or continuous learning going to happen? Just how? If you ask me, reading as a source of personal competitive advantage is fading fast. Reading as a fundamental bridge … [Read more...]

The title of the book is ‘How Toyota Became Number 1: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company’ by David Magee. It’s a book I have had in my library for some time now. The copy with me was published in 2008. Exactly one year after, Toyota began to careen down from its heights; recalling over 8.3million cars; resulting in massive loss in reputation, loss in double-digit billions of dollars; a pile of lawsuits and most especially loss of customer lives. Listen to this commentary from David Buss in 2010: “Not very long ago at all, Toyota was … [Read more...]