The Self-Determination Theory: What Drives Employees?
Why do employees often start their job with a positive mindset, only to become passive and demotivated after a certain amount of time?Read More
A Plea for More Fuzzy Thinking in Strategy
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Punk or New Wave?
Cubicle Thinking. We like it. We like to put people and objects in categories, typologies, … We like to say that this is this and that is that. Putting people, objects and events in categories gives us the illusion that we understand and that we can take control.
We do not like fuzziness, a blurry state of ambiguity.
Alas, the world is fuzzy. We cannot say that the one explanation for what is happening, is the only explanation. We cannot afford to attribute certainty to predictions. Experts can only say that “it depends”. Expertise is the art of formulating and testing hypotheses.
This is the new normal. Gone are the days that we could engage in binary thinking. We can no longer say that this is right and that is wrong. This is weak and this is strong. This is masculine. This is feminine. That is good, and this is bad. Generation X, Y, Z.Read More
Well-being Programs: Carrying Water to the Ocean?
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Well-Being Programs on the Rise
There are more and more programs on well-being. What strikes me is that they always start from a good intention but often do not have the desired effect.Read More
The Three Levels of Strategy Execution
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About Strategy
Organisations need to reconsider the way they shape the strategic process. The time that this process is linear has gone. In the past strategy was a logic sequence of definition, execution and evaluation. It was enough to define targets and cascade them downwards.Read More
Never Forget Your Values.
As many organisations are heading for heavy waters, we should not forget the question of moral leadership. Never forget your values, David Ducheyne argues in a plea for a human approach of difficult decisions.Read More
Why did Soldiers Fight in World War I?
Remembrance
Today 100 years ago, the first world war ended. A conflict with hundreds of thousands of casualties. The Great War, as it was known before there was a second conflict, still fascinates us. Apart from all the historical analyses I have a question about motivation. Why did soldiers fight during World War 1? What was their motivation to leave the trenches across the front and be maimed and slaughtered?Read More
One Year of Entrepreneurship
The First Year
A year has gone by since I have left the company I had worked for for 11 years. Many people thought I had married that company as I felt and behaved like an ambassador, representing it with passion in the outside world. And in many ways this organisation defined who I was, or who I had become.Read More
When Asking Customer Feedback is Insulting
The Rediscovery of the Customer
Companies seem to have (re)discovered the customer. You might think that companies can never forget to focus on the customer. I can tell you, they do.
Clashes at the Top: Handling Tensions in Governance
Tensions at the top of an organization are not rare. Sometimes they are fruitful. But sometimes they are detrimental. They all have to do with power and collaboration. If we would see Governance more as a kind of collaboration rather than a kind of steering, we could solve many of the unproductive tensions.
Navigating Continuous Change – Report of an LBS Workshop
During the reunion of the executive education alumni of the London Business School I had the pleasure to co-moderate one of the workshops. The topic was how to navigate continuous change. About 20 international executives exchanged their experiences. Here are the key learnings.
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