Management

focus on planning, leading, organizing, and controlling

Guest Blogger: Seven (7) Guiding “E” Principles to Purposeful Management

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Purposeful Management may be a phrase you are not familiar with, however, when you think about it, purpose matters in everything we do.  Management involves not only administrative responsibilities, but often includes overseeing and supervising others.

What does it take to be a purposeful manager? Why is it important to the bottom line? 

Hopefully, these two critical questions will be answered in the following Seven (7) Guiding  “E” Principles to Purposeful Management:

 1.      Establish Ethical Boundaries

You know about the downfall of those who have chosen to disregard ethical codes of honor and the negative outcomes of those choices.  Many of these unethical behaviors were influenced by the desire for greater power, wealth, material gain or selfish pride and greed. 

Managers who find themselves lured by these temptations are vulnerable to ethical transgressions. Today’s most successful businesses operate from a values perspective, choosing to uphold moral standards with integrity.  By establishing ethical boundaries, one can protect their honor and avoid the traps of greed.

2.      Encourage and Endorse Diversity

One of the first steps to encouraging and endorsing diversity is to first examine one’s own personal values and beliefs.  Ask the hard questions of yourself about how you view those outside of your own ethnic group or class. 

Are you aware of your own hidden biases that can unconsciously direct your behavior toward others with whom you interact with on a frequent basis?  Diversity means “different”.  Different means “no two exactly alike”. 

To respect and appreciate differences within your organization in regards to socioeconomic status, class, gender, age, culture, and various other determinants that often cause discrimination and stereotyping is a positive way to encourage and endorse diversity. 

3.      Elevate and Educate Others

Recognizing the strengths, talents and abilities of those whom you manage and providing the necessary supports and resources to further their development is to the organization’s advantage and to yours.  The cost to hire new employees is much greater than to retain current employees. 

To retain quality workers is a desire for most organizations.  When employees are rewarded with advancement opportunities and training venues based upon merit and capabilities, statistics reveal that those employees are most likely to be loyal to the company and to give their very best efforts.  Elevating and educating current employees through mentorship and promotion serves as a positive reflection upon you and the organization, especially when good employees are recognized, rewarded and retained.

4.      Strive for Excellence

Excellence does not mean the same thing to everybody.  Some people think that “excellence” means “perfection”.  Others think “excellence” is “doing or being the very best”.  Since no one is perfect, I concur that excellence is best described as “doing and being one’s very best.”

With that as the mark, striving for excellence is to aim to be and do the very best that you can.  Mediocrity is unacceptable.  Having a mindset or mentality that the mark of excellence is what you are aiming for and desiring to achieve sets the tone for those you are leading.  Excellence begets excellence.

5.      Be the Example

A friend of mine told me about an organization that she was unexpectedly fired from by a new manager who came on board.  He was referred to as a “micro manager” who abused his power of leadership through intimidation and fear tactics of control. 

The environment became quite hostile and the production of the employees decreased significantly as did their morale. Fortunately, he was terminated after the first year, but it was too late for my friend and her colleagues who had already quit. 

The moral of this story is to exhibit the behavior you want to see.  Having a disposition of hardness and mean-spiritedness creates alienation, not unification. Micro management in this case did not result in positive outcomes.

The old saying that “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” certainly applies in this situation.  Most people respond positively to kindness, respectfulness and consideration of their needs.  Being the example requires not only talking the talk, but also walking the walk.

  6.      Be Equitable

The principle of equity is all about being fair, impartial and honest. Another friend shared an experience he had recently with his supervisor when he had asked to be off for a couple of days to attend his aunt’s funeral.  He never misses work and is considered one of the most productive workers in the company.

His supervisor told him he would not approve his leave request because too many people were already out.  However, my friend knew several of the other workers who had been approved for such things as the loss of a pet and personal business, and both workers had irregular attendance and only satisfactory work ratings. My friend had to threaten to file a grievance before the supervisor reluctantly granted him emergency funeral leave.  Was this equitable treatment? You decide.

7.      Embrace Humility

Shun egotism.  John Bright defined an egotist as, “A self-made man who worships his creator.” To embrace humility is a characteristic oftentimes lacking in management because it is incorrectly perceived as weakness. 

Quite the contrary. Humility is a strength that outranks pride every time.  It takes humility to admit mistakes. It takes humility to respond with calmness in chaotic situations.  To embrace humility is to emanate nobility.

Purposeful management matters, not only for the bottom line of the organization, but to the line of employees that make it happen.

Please provide comments and input on this article to this guest blogger.

~~~

 

About the Contributing Blogger:

Gloria Thomas Anderson, LMSW, is a licensed master’s level social worker, educator, and diversity facilitator.  Currently, she is a Clinical Instructor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the School of Social Work and is a frequently requested lecturer/presenter on issues of diversity, grief and loss and end-of-life care. To learn more about her services and products, visit her website: www.gloriathomasanderson.com or email her directly at gloria@hearttones.com .

Workforce Woes

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Why do we see managers so disconnected with workers? Many CEOs proclaimed they understand their workers. Yet, most don’t! In fact, one reason organizations do not reach peak performance is because managers do not understand their employees’ motivation. Since the industrial age, researchers have recognized that both technical and social factors impact organizational performance.

Daniel Wren, author of The Evolution of Management Thought, concludes that analyzing a social system gives management an avenue to measure conflict between the “logic of efficiency” demanded by the formal organization and the “logic by sentiments” by the informal organization.

 Workers are frustrated with the status quo.  According to a American Psychological Association study, four in 10 employees say a heavy workload, unrealistic job expectations, and long hours have created stress. With fierce global competition, I found it surprising that managers move toward the quick fixes like downsizing for short-term gain without analyzing the organization over the long term. This process isn’t easy. Yet, understanding workers need to be a priority. 

The current financial meltdown has forever changed our confident in traditional institutions. The private and public sectors are no exceptions. However, many organizations gain comfort in knowing that most employees will not leave due to this economic crisis. Yet, employee loyalty is at a three year low. According to MetLife’s 9th Annual study of Employee Benefit Trends, frustrated workers are secretly undertaking job searches in hopes of new opportunities when the market recovers.

In high-performance organizations, an environment is created where managers and workers coexist. In profit hunting, many businesses lose focus of the importance of socio-technical systems. Given precepts, it becomes evident that there is an increasing disconnect between leaders and followers in today’s organizations. To some managers, the problem with today’s workforce is simple a physical problem which is lack of motivated workers. Yet, the reality of the matter is that the workforce pressures are affecting workers holistically.  

What can be done to connect senior executives with the plight of today’s workers so that they can learn how to effectively motivate the workforce?

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green

[1] The Evolution of Management Thought by Daniel Wren

[2] “Workers eager to job hunt as morale plunges” by Laura Petrecca

[3] “Workers eager to job hunt as morale plunges” by Laura Petrecca

A Knowledge Revolution

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Sadly, many managers operate under a Tayloristic philosophy where managers “know it all” and followers are only subordinates with little insight or experience. Managers are smarter; therefore, they “lord” over their workers. However, advanced communication technologies and vast access to information by workers make this approach outdated.  As we are bombarded with data and information frequently, manage information becomes critical. The backbone of this transformation is knowledge workers. 

Knowledge management (KM) relates to an organization’s ability to systematically capture, organize, and store information. When dealing with KM issues, many people focus on intellectual capital or technology issues, rather than the human element. Dr. Jay Liebowitz, author of Addressing the Human Capital Crisis in the Federal Government, argues that knowledge management should be a critical element in an organization’s human capital strategy.

He further noted the cohesiveness of these terms. In an organization, human capital is derived from the “brain power” of fellow employees. This knowledge transfer is done in an organization in several ways, such as lessons learned, best practices, and culture. Therefore, knowledge management and human capital strategies should be tailored to the specific organization.

As a rule, an organization’s knowledge and capability depends primarily on its human and social capital. Knowledge workers create and capture information for the management of knowledge. This situation occurs because today’s workers are more informed than previous generations. However, knowledge workers are driven by different motivational factors than traditional workers.

 

Many executives are more concerned with managing resources and work processes than dealing with people. In fact, people become just another product to manage in a hectic environment. Yet, Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter suggest that the current organizational paradigm represents the dehumanization of today’s workers. Therefore, today’s managers cannot afford to manage and motivate workers in the same fashion; they must apply new approaches of leadership in order to inspire today’s knowledge workers.

What can US organizations do to maximize the usage of this knowledge workforce?

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green

Creativity for Survival

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It is 2020. Knowledge management and information gathering dominate the world. Therefore, he who owns and controls information is king. Globalization has made labor cheaper and abundant. Yet, the critical assets are inno-thinkers. They are the lifeblood of society.

With the majority of engineers coming from China and India in 2020, American companies lose their innovative edge in the marketplace. Many historians point to 2008 when US engineering schools did nothing to wave off the international threat. Some hoped things would change. Yet, the future remains uncertain for engineering in America.

As America marches to a different drummer, it finds there is an impending danger ahead. While globalization has become a menacing threat to some businesses, the major challenge for traditional academic institutions is to produce engineers who are intelligent, creative, and internationally savvy to handle the challenges of the 21st century. However, only 2% of the general public associate engineering with creativity according to Harris Poll sponsored by the American Association of Engineering Societies and IEEE-USA. In managerial decision-making, creativity involves the ability of a manager to discover novel ideas as possible alternative courses of action for the organization to use in solving a particular problem.

The lack of creativity by today’s engineers becomes critical as more businesses look for technical workers for the future workforce. According to a survey conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, 63% of American business leaders said college graduates are not prepared for the global environment. From a market-oriented perspective, organizational leaders must be concerned with the present downward trend of American engineering schools in producing innovative students.

 Academia must overcome several potential barriers that when transforming engineering schools to centers of innovation.  Currently, there are 346 universities approved by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the national organization that sets standards for engineering schools. Although scientists and engineers make up only 5% of the United States population, they generate up to 50% of the Gross Domestic Product.

Sadly, fewer American students are earning degrees in engineering and science. This situation is creating a national crisis for businesses looking for innovation and creativity from the nation’s finest.

In 2004, the United States graduated roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers while other countries such as China (600,000) and India (350,000) were graduating more engineers. Traditionally, educators attribute the high attrition rate of individuals leaving engineering majors to their inability to cope with the intrinsic hardness of technical majors and do not view it as a major problem.

However, criticism of faculty pedagogy, together with those of curriculum design and student practices, constitutes the largest group of problems for students leaving technical majors.

Demographic changes also continue to shape the realities of engineering schools. Non-traditional universities are leveraging diversity as a competitive advantage while many traditional schools are not.

Thus, the demographic changes of more women, minorities, and low income students have created social pressure on engineering schools to find other pipeline sources than the traditional sources.

In order to the fierce realities of globalization, engineering schools need to shift their strategy toward a creativity focus. Technological and cultural influences are demanding new creative solutions. Many institutional leaders operate engineering schools in a manner that suggests that innovation happens by chance. Michael Michalko, author of Thinkertoys, argues that creativity is not an accident. In fact, it must be an organization intention to foster creative-thinking strategies.

Many times engineering students lose sight of creativity and focus solely on the technical aspects of engineering. A liberal arts education provides an exchange of fresh ideas and an expansion of the creative mind.

Researcher Gary Berg argues that higher education needs to balance applied and liberal arts curricula in order to be effective. Therefore, a new approach to learning is needed in engineering schools. In tomorrow’s universities, collaborative building will be in high demand.

Unfortunately, many times faculty members discourage engineering students from acquiring a broader educational experience. Therefore, engineering schools become a place where students are inhibited from growing creatively.

Twenty-first century leaders in engineering departments must address the needs of students in becoming creative if they hope to take advantage of future opportunities in hypercompetitive environments. Some people wonder if these schools can change.

What challenges and obstacles prevent traditional institutions from producing creative engineers? How do domestic universities transition themselves into incubators of multinational innovation?

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green

Guest Blogger: Importance of motivating employees in development of organization

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Motivation is important for employees in business development because it inspires and encourages people to achieve success. Moreover, in today’s economy and competitive world, especially for the knowledge and finance based companies like a debt management company, motivation is of great importance. People go to a debt management company for debt settlement programs. In dealing with debt a person loses all his confidence and motivation. Now, if he talks to a motivated person he will gain optimism and start living is life cheerfully. The business will be a successful one too.

Motivation – It helps in development of a company

Motivation can have a positive effect on the output of your business and concerns both quantity and quality of your performance. Quality which is related to efficiency increases with motivation. So, if your business relies heavily on efficiency, increase motivation among your staffs. If your employees lack the motivation to produce completed products or efficient services to meet the demand of the customers, then you may face problems.

No matter how efficient your technology and equipments may be, still your staffs are more important in running your business. Rather with the growth in importance of technology, the importance of employees has increased too.

Advantages of motivating your staff

Some of the advantages of motivating your staff are:

  1. Higher level of staff retention, thereby leading to reduction in the recruitment costs
  2. Increasing the levels of productivity for your company
  3. Increase in innovativeness and creativity
  4. Increase in profits
  5. Reputation will grow amongst your potential employees, suppliers and customers

How to motivate your staff

In order to motivate your staff and increase their efficiency:

  1. Provide a clear vision of what your business stands for and where you want it to see
  2. Communicate the values and priorities across the organization
  3. Make sure that the work is challenging, with variation sin the tasks
  4. Build work specific teams and see that the team members co-operate with each other
  5. Provide for high-quality training and development like encouragement to study further to achieve professional qualifications
  6. Try to establish a friendly and collaborative work environment – an open door culture where managers are easily approachable. Also, make sure to communicate with your employees on a regular basis as and when needed
  7. Incorporate flexible working practices and also maintain fairness at the workplace mainly in regards to promoting equality and diversity among the staff
  8. You should also ask for feedback either in person or through staff surveys, on what employees feel about their work, the support they get, and the improvements that they think will help the business
  9. Incorporate rewarding employees for their good work and competitive intelligence.

Employees may get more motivated to work if they perfectly understand how they are important to the organization and what their primary purpose is. Thus, providing clear vision on the organization’s purpose is important. You need to know if your employees really have a clear idea about your organization’s principles, priorities, and your company’s mission. However, not all people are motivated by the same thing. So, through the surveys try to find out the diversification among your employees. You can also introduce stress relief sessions for your employees.

All these together can work towards motivating the employees to work efficiently and thus you will be able to run a successful and profitable business. In addition, you will also have to remember that motivating your employees should start from motivating yourself first. If you love the job you are doing, you will be able to make your employees understand the importance of the work. Thus, you will be able to motivate your people and you will become a successful business leader.

About the Guest Blogger:  This article is contributed by Emily Jones, an IAPDA Certified Debt Arbitrator working with Oak View Law Group.

Please feel free to comment on this topic.

A Process Mindset

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If you want to research how to be a successful NBA franchise, you need to review the history of the Los Angeles Lakers. Yet, it is the run in the 1980s that is most intriguing to me as an organization.  With the retirement of Jerry West and Wilt Chambertain  in the 1970s, many people probably wrote them off.  Even with acquiring 7 footer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers couldn’t duplicate their past success.

However, the Lakers started building the framework for a future success. This process included selecting a young 6-9 point guard from Michigan State named Earvin “Magic” Johnson in the NBA draft.  With visionary coach Pat Riley, the franchise surrounded their 7 footer with much talent, including James Worthy, Spencer Haywood, Michael Cooper, and Jamaal Wilkes.

However, winning required All Star talent to become role players and swallow their egos so that they could win as a team, instead of individuals. This process thinking was successful. The 1980s Lakers, known as ‘Showtime” due to their electrifying performances, won five championships in a nine year span, including beating their rivals, the Celtics, several times in key games. Like the Lakers, organizations need a process for success.

If I could be a fly on the wall during student evaluations, I know my students would note that Professor Green is overly obsessed with process thinking. In fact, I even have a process for naming files for submission.  In a world that often promotes free thinking and spontaneity, some folks may believe that process thinking is too rigid to be used in an uncertain future.  On the contrary, having a process-oriented mindset will help organizations navigate the future. In this discussion, we will explore how a process mindset provides a competitive advantage during this economic crisis.

Being  process-orient is important in today hypercompetitive environment. High performance organizations in America understand that excellence does not happen by chance. Understanding one’s processes is vital. A process can be defined as “any activity or group of activities that takes an input, adds values to it, and provides to an internal or external customer.  Some of America’s shine across the globe has been taken for granted the small things in operations. 

H. James Harrington, author of Process Improvement notes, “We have taken a fine worldwide reputation and destroyed….We lost the important customer advantage, and each day our reputation worsens because our competition is improving more rapidly than we are.”  J. Davidson Frame, author of the New Project Management, further argues that organizations must evolve their processes. Frame notes, “Thus models contribute to the management of complexity by reducing the requirement for understanding a process in all of its details. They permit people to focus on the consequences of actions without having to understand their intricacies.”  Therefore, having a process mindset will have a greater impact on an organization’s effectiveness in the near future.

How can organizations more effectively utilize a process-oriented mindset in order to better compete in the future?

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green

 

Knowledge Worker Revolution

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If I had a magical organizational wand, I would turn old toady CEOs into beautiful princes and princesses who champion the causes of their workers. Unfortunately, there’s not enough magic from Oz to convince most executives that today’s workers are more than mechanical parts to their profit machine. During this discussion, we will explore the concept of knowledge workers in organizations.

Some employees feel they are often undervalued and unappreciated by their managers. For example, my friend, Stan, is a very intelligent person in spite of not attending college. He accepted a new job as warehouse operator. Because of downsizing, he became the only person in that department. Stan created his own cataloging system without a computer. That was impressive.

When Stan was up for a raise, he asked for more money. His supervisor explained that it couldn’t be done. My friend countered that he had optimized their warehouse systems, and the operations depended on his knowledge. His supervisor knew it was true because when Stan wasn’t there, no one could find anything.

Stan got what he wanted. He had become a knowledge commodity. This represents the revolution of knowledge workers on the traditional organizational structure. Therefore, if today’s leaders don’t adequately manage the knowledge workforce, they will be at a competitive disadvantage.

Knowledge workers are a critical commodity. Gareth Morgan, author of Imagination, argues that contemporary use of organizational charts and diagrams are major tools for restructuring. However, this creates a false sense that a new organizational chart can solve all of the organization’s problems. Modern-day bosses feel that “top down” management is best. Clearly, they are mistaken.

Georg Krogh, Kazuo Ichijo, and Ikujiro Nonaka, authors of Enabling Knowledge Creation, maintain that knowledge management (KM) is not one person’s job; everyone in organizations can play a vital role in transferring  information. As a rule, an organization’s knowledge and capacity building depends primarily on its human and social capital. In most contemporary organizations, technology can be a critical tool in supporting the knowledge work.

Yet, knowledge workers create and capture information for the management of knowledge. In fact, KM is performed by individuals who belong to communities of interest where knowledge is shared and accumulated. Therefore, effective management of today’s operations depends on talented and gifted knowledge workers.

How do today’s organizations better engage knowledge workers due an era of sweeping layoffs and outsourcing? 

© 2010 by Daryl D. Green

Knowledge Management Infusion

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If managers want to gain more efficiency in operations, businesses need to better understand their knowledge management systems.  In handling short-term matters, many organizations have forgotten the long-term consequences of short changing their corporate knowledge. For today’s businesses,  corporate culture along with the massive retirement of Baby Boomers represents a serious concern as it relates to tacit knowledge. Researchers Xiaoming Cong and Kaushik Pandya argue that tacit knowledge, which is often unwritten and less concrete, has become a key asset.

Many employees from the private sector can point to the 80’s as a period of organizational change in terms of downsizing. For federal employees, this reality of potential job lost was not evident until the 90s. In September of 1993, President Clinton set a goal to reduce the Executive Branch civilian workforce. With budget reductions and in some cases base closures, it was apparent to many employees that downsizing was now a reality for federal workers.

New government initiatives, such as A-76, continued to frighten government employees as they saw their jobs outsourced to others. A-76 referred to OMB Circular A-76 (Performance of Commercial Activities) that requires government agencies to determine if its work functions could be done in the private sector cheaper and better.

Research on downsizing efforts in the public and private sectors has found numerous examples of negative impacts on employee productivity, morale, customer service, and product quality. Organizations are relying more on employee involvement to streamline their processes. If you are an employee, do you share information with others that will decrease your value and potentially place you at risks for layoffs?   

Employee cynicism of management will make this problematic. According to Maritz Poll, less than 15% of employees strongly agree that their managers show consistency between their words and actions. Additionally, only 7% of employees strongly trust their senior managers to look out for their best interest. Leadership blogger Dan McCarthy argues, “While workplace trust has been dwindling since the Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco scandals of the earlier part of the decade, threats of layoffs and downsizing have only exacerbated the problem.” In this blog, we will discuss knowledge management in operations.

In today’s hypercompetitive environment, knowledge management becomes a vital component for modern organizations. Knowledge management (KM) relates to an organization’s ability to systematically capture, organize, and store information. When dealing with KM issues, many people focus on intellectual capital or technology issues, rather than the human element.

Consequently, many organizations develop their own KM perspective. For example, Lotus Development Corporation defines KM by the following five technology pillars: business intelligence, collaboration, knowledge transfer, knowledge discovery and mapping, and the location of needed expertise.  As organizations continue to become more complex, engage in global competition, and operate under uncertainty, disseminating information becomes a valuable commodity. KM has been a core ingredient for most government agencies; it is difficult to separate strategic planning from KM.

Georg Krogh, Kazuo Ichijo, and Ikujiro Nonaka, authors of Enabling Knowledge Creation, maintain that knowledge creation must be supported by organizations in a number of ways if knowledge creation is to happen. In fact, they note the following enablers: (a) instill a knowledge vision, (b) manage conversations, (c) mobilize knowledge activists, (d) create the right context, and (e) globalize local knowledge.

Managing this KM system is not easy after the layoff craze of the 1980s. In fact, knowledge sharing without committed leadership and encouraging organizational culture will only be marginally successful. Researchers Alex Birman and John Risko maintain that an organization can improve competitiveness and adaptability and increase its chance of success with an effective KM process. However, Michael Tushman and Charles O’Reilly, authors of Winning Through Innovation, argue that an organization’s culture can prevent it from undergoing positive change because organizational renewal demands requires mastering both innovation and organizational change.

How do organizations ensure the effectiveness of their knowledge management systems? Can trust be rebuilt with today’s workers after  past management failures? If so, how?

  © 2010 by Daryl D. Green

 

Fueling Intellectual Assets

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When I wrote my first book, My Cup Runneth Over: Setting Goals for Single Parents and Working Couples, it took me two months to write and less than a year to get published (it normally takes 18 months to three years to get published).  People were amazed at my publishing accomplishments.

My world was transformed, from being a little unknown engineer in Tennessee to being a respected expert and quoted by USA Today and Ebony Magazine.  It provided a great avenue for influencing others across the country and the world.  Additionally, it provided me with a more diverse portfolio of passive income and revenue.  In the greater scheme of thinking, I found out that my new platform was centered, not on the physical book—but on the creation of intellectual assets. 

As organizations contend with global competition, many businesses will need to rethink their strategies for sustainability in the knowledge and innovation economy.  Across the nation, companies are depending more on freelance workers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of workers placed by temporary staffing agencies rose by 404,000 since September 2010. Furthermore, many gifted, laid-off workers are forced to become independent contractors and freelancers.  According to the Freelancer Union, 18% of its members were forced to give up health insurance in 2009 while 39% cut back coverage.  This trend is reshaping America’s workforce.

Yet, value creation will be the key to opening endless opportunities for today’s businesses.  We complain about the rate of manufacturing jobs going abroad and how this reality impacts the quality of living. Perhaps the future will be ruled not by the tangible but the intangible.  In fact, the knowledge economy will wreak havoc on traditional thinking. 

 

Thomas Davenport and Kevin Desouza, intellectual strategists, argue the importance of organizations understanding their intellectual assets: “In the industrial economy, a key component of mass production and productivity—and hence economic growth—was the reuse of physical assets: molds, templates, castings and so forth.  Although so much of the economy is now based on intellectual assets, we have yet to achieve a similar level of reuse and productivity improvement for that class of asset.”  In this discussion, we will look at how intellectual assets will fuel the future.

Henrik Vejlgaard, author of Anatomy of a Trend, argues that emerging trends are influenced by gifted people, including entrepreneurs, designers, and artists.  Vejlgaard notes that these people “create new products or invent new styles or begin doing something in a completely new way.”  In the old days, creative people were the butt of jokes pertaining to finding sustainable employment.  

Yet, the future will belong to just these people, as many organizations across the world will need this asset to enhance their survivability.  Fueling the knowledge economy will be knowledge creation (intellectual asset creation) and knowledge management (intellectual asset management).

An important ingredient for the knowledge economy is the creation, use, storage, and positioning of an organization’s intellectual assets.  Intellectual assets are valuable elements created by human ingenuity: written documents, software, musical compositions, and other intellectual spin-offs.  Intellectual assets can be divided into two categories, product assets and process assets.  Product assets are the specific outputs of knowledge work such as software programs or legal briefs.  

In contrast, process assets are codified knowledge about how to perform a task such as manufacturing steps for a new product.  Some countries have already realized the critical value of intellectual assets.  In May 2004, the Ministerial Council in France studied how intellectual assets impacted value creation, growth, and economic performance.  The study noted, “The continuous shift toward a knowledge-based and innovation-driven economy has brought to the forefront the issue of how knowledge is created, disseminated, retained and used to obtain economic returns.”

Intellectual assets will place individuals at the center stage of wealth creation across the globe.  Today, traditional publishers struggle to stay in business as the world has been overrun by knowledge creation.  Many experts will argue that the Big 6 (Random House, Inc., Penguin Putnam, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Time Warner, and Simon & Schuster) dominate the publishing world.  Yet, the world is changing.  

According to a Para Publishing study, traditional publishers are in trouble.  In 2004, more than 1.8 million books were in print.  A new book is published every 30 seconds.  With challenges from the global economies, digital publishing models, and industry standard changes, major publishers are bombarded with changes that impact their bottom-line.  In 2002, major publishers decreased output by 5% yet titles published rose by 6%. 

What is driving the publishing industry now?  It is independent publishers and literary entrepreneurs emerging in this digital age.  In fact, 70% of the titles are now coming from small or self-publishers. In the digital age, individuals can transform one idea into multiple formats including paper back, hardcover, MP3 files, DvD, and other downloadable files.  Therefore, knowledge creators are building an empire of intellectual assets.  Websites like Createspace.com and Lulu.com give individuals the power to create wealth while building influence effortlessly.

What modifications will need to be made in the publishing model to incorporate intellectual assets created by entrepreneurs? How can organizations take advantage of these gifted creators in their organizations and still fully control their knowledge management processes?

 © 2010 by Daryl D. Green

Market Turbulence

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For many people, the bad economic picture will not change soon enough. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll, almost three-fourths of those surveyed don’t like what’s going on in the country. David Walker, the former chief of the Government Accountable Office, predicts a poorer America if the economic ship doesn’t change direction: “We’ve kicked the can down the road as far as we can. We are at the abyss.”

Market turbulence has overtaken our ability to realize the American Dream. This turbulence relates to the chaos that now plaques our financial institutions, wrecking havoc on our normalcy. With a weak job growth, many U.S. jobs will continue to be outsourced globally or automated through technology.

In fact, the government estimates that an additional 1.2 manufacturing jobs will disappear by 2018. In this economic downturn, many people are just happy to have a job. Yet, the hectic work environment creates severe consequences to today’s workers as well.  In our discussion, we will focus on market turbulence and how to leverage against it.

Market turbulence is transforming businesses across the globe.  International markets have been shaken.  It’s like riding first class on a cruise ship during a terrible hurricane. You have plenty of the creature comforts.

Yet, it doesn’t change your situation. You are in for a rough ride. Today, American businesses, like other nations, are on this rough ride. The hurricane is market turbulence. Stanley Gryskiewicz, author of Positive Turbulence, stresses the dangers of this rocky ride: “Turbulence is energic, forceful, catalytic, and unpredictable.” 

Many organizations do not understand what to do or how to survive it.  Stan Davis, author of Future Perfect, declares, “The external environment-technology, economy, society and so on—is changing so fast that businesses scurry to keep up. Organizations, however, simply cannot run that fast. So our organizations don’t change as fast as do the businesses that they are managing.”

Charles Handy, author of The Age of Unreason, argues “Discontinuous changes require discontinuous thinking. If the new way of doing things is going to be different from the old, not just an improvement on it, then we shall need to look at everything in a new way.”  Many managers brag about their extensive experience. 

Many managers brag about their extensive experience. However, in a market plagued by uncertainty, this experience works against traditionalists. Today change is rapid and unpredicted.  Loaded with their vast experience, managers can lead organizations into business despair. Given the large degree of uncertainty and unknowns, some organizations continue on the same path…to nowhere!

Innovative managers can leverage market turbulence to their advantage. Everywhere we look we see this disruptive change breaking down traditional thinking.  What worked yesterday, will fail today. The best companies know how to adapt to turbulence. While others downsize and contract their market efforts, great companies infuse their organizations with creativity and expand their operations, competing on their strengths. 

Management strategist Stanley Gryskiewicz argues that turbulence associated with change can be a positive force for innovation.  He recommendations four elements in taking advantage of turbulence, which are (a) difference (breaking out from the status quo, (b) multiple perspectives (inviting divergent viewpoints and nontraditional interpretations, (c) intensity (keeping the speed, volume, and force at an optimal level for change, and (d) receptivity (providing mechanisms for individuals to be able to thrive in turbulence.

Gary Hamel, author of Leading the Revolution, suggests “In the new industrial order, the battle lines don’t run between regions and countries…In a nonlinear world, only nonlinear ideas will create wealth.” Creative expert Michael Michalko argues that creativity:  is the answer for surviving market turbulence: “It is not a result of some easily learned magic trick or secret but a consequence of your intention to be creative and your determination to learn and use creativity.”  Yet, succeeding during market turbulence is no accident. In fact, organizations must be deliberate in creating sustainable performance during market turbulence.

How do organizations effectively implement nonlinear thinking to be successful during market turbulence?

 © 2010 by Daryl D. Green