Out of the Frying Pan

Once again, Bob Sutton nails it

Life is a funny old thing, so I guess I can't rule out the possibility of ever meeting Bob Sutton. Sitting here on a snowy day in northern Colorado, behind on school work and befuddled about other work, it seems unlikely.

But maybe some day I'll get to hear him lecture. It would be a treat. I really admire the wide range of sources from which he takes in information and his straight talk about what it might mean. Take, for example, his blog entry from yesterday:

This research is also fascinating to me because it shows how, so often, when people say they are too busy, don't have enough money, or there will be resistance to change that these are excuses, or worse yet, negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

Read the entire entry. In various ways, it might save your life.

Management mojo at Netflix

128 slides about Netflix corporate culture will probably raise the hackles of a lot of folks my age. It is aggressively Darwinian, which doesn't have a lot of sex appeal for us 50-somethings.

Comments about the slides are instructive and probably prove my point. HT, Bob Sutton

Collaboration

The estimable Bob Sutton reviews a new book, Collaboration, by Morten Hansen. Hansen says that his research shows that "bad collaboration is worse than no collaboration."

Yeah, I have to say that empirical evidence has demonstrated that to me. Some of my greatest successes are the result of good ongoing collaborations with other "T-shaped" people: DC being first among the equals I work with these days.

A podcast about collaboration with Morten Hansen.

HBR's "Breakthrough Business Ideas for 2009"

The lead has a nifty TOC, so you might like to check it out. Some ideas were especially provocative to me:

• What You Need to Know About the Semantic Web, a basic but I think not really dumbed-down explanation;
• Now's the Time to Invest in Africa challenges investors, especially corporations, to take another look at the opportunities: The time is ripe for multinationals to rethink sub-Saharan opportunities and simultaneously to help the region achieve its promise by contributing much- needed capital, business skills, and global connections. , say Paul Collier and Jean-Louis Warnholz;
• Should You Outsource Your Brain? Call centers and decision making officeshore? Well, yeah. And while you're at it...
• get into cognitive exercise, which might better prepare you to...
• imagine architecture that challenges your body, if you can. The Web site is reversibledestiny.org: ARCHITECTURE AGAINST DEATH. HT, AGT whose link put me on to the HBR article;
• and finally, in a prick at the balloon of one's sense of self-importance, The Dynamics of Personal Influence, or Your Ripple in the Pond Might Not Be As Big As You Think;

Whew.

'Efficient market' thinking...

is inefficient. HT Bob Sutton