In this interactive session, we will explore elements of leadership and organizational design that are likely to lead to better overall individual and organizational performance. We will consider the behaviors of leaders who are functioning at their personal best; look at examples of organizational environments where people innovate, collaborate and thrive; and engage in large and small group discussions about culture, creativity and meaning in the workplace. You will leave this session energized to try new things as a leader in your own organization.
Associate Professor of Business Administration Joseph W. Harder teaches in the Organizational Behavior area at the Darden School of Management, University of Virginia. His research interests include distributive and procedural justice in organizations, the effects of perceived injustice on individual performance, determinants of individual and organizational performance, pay-for-performance systems, and perceptions and effects of leadership. Harder has taught executive education in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. Before joining the Darden faculty in 1998, he was associate director of the Leadership Program and assistant professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at Santa Clara University. Harder received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
“Don’t kid yourself about learning all you need to know about innovation in B-school. You didn’t. When people talked about innovation in the ’90s, they really meant technology. When people talk about innovation in this decade, they really mean design.” Bruce Nussbaum makes this bold statement in the pages of BusinessWeek (1/3/05), exhorting his readers to explore the field of design, and, in fact, look to it as the next source of competitive advantage. But, what is design? What are the key principles at the heart of the design process? What are the activities in which designers engage? How do they think? In this session, we’ll use videos, in-class exercises and discussion to explore the field of design, the importance of understanding customer and user needs to the design process, and its role in achieving competitive success.
Sara Beckman teaches innovation management at the University of California’s Haas School of Business where she has initiated new courses on design, entrepreneurship in biotechnology, new product development, and work and workspace design, won four awards from MBA students for excellence in teaching and received the Berkeley campus Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Beckman has also worked for the Hewlett-Packard Company, most recently as Director of the Product Generation Change Management Team. Dr. Beckman has B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Stanford University and an M.S. in Statistics from the same institution. She serves on the boards of the Corporate Design Foundation and the Building Materials Holding Corporation.
Most organizations claim that their people are their competitive advantage, but only a few actually achieve their claims or even know what they really mean. In this session, we will focus on turning strategy into reality through employee behaviors. We will use an interactive lecture and a break-out session to discuss (a) the link between strategic outcomes and upstream human capital decisions and practices, (b) metrics to pinpoint desired performance and improve performance management, and (c) human capital architecture and how to highlight areas for improvement in your company.
Daniel Cable is a Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also likes to renovate old houses. His consulting and teaching focuses on making human systems match company strategy, and recent clients include the Navy, First Citizens Bank, Sony Ericsson, Arsenal Digital, and several water utilities. His research topics include talent acquisition and retention, person-organization fit, the organizational entry process, compensation systems, job choice decisions, and career success. Cable has renovated houses in Atlanta, GA; Boone, NC; Raleigh, NC; and Chapel Hill, NC.
In this interactive session, we explore the role of leadership and team learning in organizational learning. The session uses a team exercise, a case discussion, and interactive lecture to convey and explore leadership strategies for promoting team and organizational learning in dynamic environments. Participants will learn (1) to build insight into the need for and nature of organizational learning, in addition to individual skill development, for achieving operational excellence in a dynamic context, (2) to clarify the difference between organizing to execute and organizing to learn and to illustrate situations for which organizing to learn is needed, and (3) to communicate ideas from recent academic research on team and organizational learning in memorable and actionable ways.
Amy C. Edmondson, Professor at the Harvard Business School, teaches graduate-level management courses on service operations, teams, and organizational change, and a doctoral course on research methods. Professor Edmondson's research investigates teamwork and learning in health care and other industries in which collaboration is essential to performance. She has published more than 40 academic papers and was the recipient of the Academy of Management's award for most significant publication in the field of organizational behavior in 1999 and the American Psychological Association's Division 49 Best Dissertation Award in 1997. In 2003, the Academy of Management selected her to receive the annual Cummings Award, which recognizes one researcher in early mid-career for outstanding achievement and significant impact on the field of organizational behavior. Her recent article with graduate student Anita Tucker, "Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures," received the 2004 Accenture Award for significant contribution to management practice. Before her academic career, Professor Edmondson worked as chief engineer for Buckminster Fuller in the early 1980s, and her book, A Fuller Explanation, clarifies Fuller's mathematical contributions for a nonscientific audience. In the late 1980s, Professor Edmondson was Director of Research for Pecos River Learning Center, where she developed organizational change programs for large companies. She received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design, all from Harvard University.
Power is one of a leader's most important resources. Leaders use power to steer individuals, groups, and organizations in new directions, to mobilize support among diverse constituencies, and to overcome resistance and opposition to their initiatives. In the absence of power, it is hard for leaders to accomplish much of anything. Because of its importance, it is crucial for executives to learn how to assess the political landscape of their organization accurately and to act effectively on the basis of those assessments. The primary aim of this seminar is to help executives understand how to recognize sources of power within their organizations, and how to use those power sources more effectively. Using a series of videotape cases, we will explore how leaders use power effectively and ineffectively when trying to get their work done.
Roderick M. Kramer is the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Business School and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He is the author or co-author of over ninety scholarly articles and essays, and co-editor of eight books. His work has appeared in leading academic journals as well as the distinguished Harvard Business Review. He has taught at numerous institutions, including the London Business School, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Oxford University, and Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He has been awarded numerous teaching honors at these institutions. His research focuses on creativity, cooperation, trust, negotiation, power, and organizational paranoia.
This workshop will help mangers select the best business practices (and avoid the worst) and learn how to turn sound ideas into organizational action. Bob Sutton will show how, by avoiding excessive faith in brilliant gurus, breakthrough ideas, case studies of successful firms, and emotionally appealing ideologies, managers can use the best available evidence to trump the competition. Sutton will then explore common impediments to turning the best business practices into action, including the historical precedent, smart-talk trap, fear, and dysfunctional competition—and how companies can and overcome these "knowing-doing gaps." Sutton will use both rigorous research and examples from firms including Harrah's, People Magazine, Enterprise Rent-a- Car, Toyota, Intel, Men's Wearhouse, and 7/Eleven to illustrate his points. Participants will be drawn into constant conversation with Professor Sutton about these ideas and the morning will punctuate multiple small group exercises.
Robert I. Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, where he is Co-Director of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization, an active researcher in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and an IDEO Fellow. Sutton has published over 90 articles and 7 books and edited volumes. In particular, Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge Into Action (Harvard Business School Press, 2000), which was selected as Best Management Book of 2000 by Management General. His latest book, Weird Ideas That Work: 11 ½ Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation (The Free Press, 2002), was selected by the Harvard Business Review as one of the 10 best business books of the year and as a breakthrough business idea. Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer are now writing Dangerous Half-Truths: The Case for Evidence-based Management.
