Odds & Sods

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 5 to 1

Top blog posts from 2011, from number 5 to number 1, a follow-up from Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6 5. The cost of culture, a 50% turnover of the Fortune 500 — This blog came about to reiterate that change is constant and the things that may have gotten a company [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, culture, Fortune 500, impact analysis, mergers and acquisitions, scope, scope management, social media, strategy

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6

Closing out 2011 I look back at the year’s most viewed posts as a chance to reflect on differences of what I topics I blog about and what people view most. Why were some viewed over others: topic, time-of-year, day-of-week? In descending order: 10. Competing values drives your organization out of business — A 2009 [...]

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Tagged as: Appreciative Inquiry, change management, Competing Values Framework, culture, project, project management, stakeholder, stakeholder analysis, strategy, Twitter

Fistful of beans 09/21/2011

4 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Why being wrong is good for you — CNN.com Most of us go through life assuming we are right, almost all the time, about pretty much everything: our political, our values, our tastes, our religious beliefs, our view of other people, our memory, our [...]

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Tagged as: diversity, innovation, Kathryn Schulz, patent, The Economist, Wall Street Journal

Engagement needs both context and perspective

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet … “, iambic pentameter aside, I appreciate Mr. Shakespeare’s point. However, when I look at a word that is recently trending in a lot of companies and organizations, like the word engagement is, it seems context, perspective, and the value proposition truly defines how sweet the [...]

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Tagged as: communication, engagement, health care, leadership, market, motivation

Fistful of beans 08/24/2011

3 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Bored People Quit — Rands in Response blog People who quit say: “I don’t believe in this company.” Bored people quit. The author of this post is neither an HR professional nor an organization development/behavior professional, this author simply manages people. I say [...]

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Tagged as: bias, boss, engagement, human resources, manage, management, Mercer, motivation, New York Times, SlideShare, social media

Influence of The Modern Firm

The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts Brief: The most fundamental responsibility of a general manager is to craft strategy and design an organization where the strategy can succeed within the economic, political, legal, regulatory, social, and the technological environment the firm operates. A direct challenge to the design is finding alignment within the [...]

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Tagged as: economics, influen, influence, innovation, leadership, management, organization design, strategy

Fistful of beans 05/11/2011

4 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Think About Diversity of Thought — Diversity Executive Magazine Organizations have cultural norms that employees are expected to work within. Ideas presented by employees need become judged on value, not judged on the different perspectives they represent. Thought diversity introduces not only different viewpoints, but also differences [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, collaboration, diversity, Diversity Executive, health care, innovation, invention, magazine, Wall Street Journal

Fistful of beans 05/04/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. How Genius Works — The Atlantic Great art or innovation begins with an idea. Sometimes the idea is vague or even simply a bad idea. In this brief, The Atlantic looks into 17 of America’s foremost artists to discuss and find out about how genius [...]

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Tagged as: David Blei, Human Resource Executive, innovation, magazine, retention, Sean Gerrish, Talent Management, The Atlantic, The Economist

Fistful of beans 04/27/2011

3 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Too Big to Succeed? — CFO Magazine Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase are the clear winners of the consolidation game. Each of these, individually, have more than 2 times the assets of 4th-place Wachovia. These 3 banks have bet cross-selling and their [...]

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Tagged as: bank, Bank of America, CFO, Citigroup, Facebook, fistful of beans, Girls Scouts, JPMorgan Chase, magazine, pr, public relations, social media, social media marketing, Talent Management, Wachovia

Fistful of beans 04/20/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Scrap Learning and Manager Engagement — CLO Magazine Most organizations overlook an important aspect of development that often makes it many times more effective — manager engagement. Training tends to lose its power with time. Employees forget what they’ve learned or let their newly acquired skills [...]

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Tagged as: Asia, Barbara Cairns PhD, Bloomberg Businessweek, CFO, Charlie Rose, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Learning Officer, China, CLO, economy, fistful of beans, learning, Lee Kwan Yew, M&A, magazine, Make Training Stick, mergers and acquisitions, motivation, Talent Management

Fistful of beans 04/13/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Managing the Motivation Equation — Chief Learning Officer Leveraging motivation theory can reduce intention-action gap. What is the intention-action gap? Outside work the intention-action gap can be saying you will call you mother every Sunday, but rarely do. At work the intention-action gap can be saying [...]

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Tagged as: accounting, AIG, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chief Learning Officer, Chrysler, Fannie Mae, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, General Motors, magazine, management, Mortgage-Backed Security, motivation, Talent Management, Treasury, Trouble Asset Relief Program

Fistful of beans 04/06/2011

3 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Learning Fosters Psychologically Healthy Workplaces — CLO Magazine The American Psychological Association (APA) recently awarded 8 companies with their Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards (PHWA). The companies were rated on five different criteria: employee involvement, health and safety, work-life balance, employee recognition, and employee growth and development. [...]

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Tagged as: Booz & Company, Chief Learning Officer, CLO, EBay, innovation, learning, magazine, morale, process, research and development, Talent Management

Fistful of beans 03/30/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Still too big to fail — CFO Magazine Too-big-to-fail is defined as the government using taxpayer dollars to rescue “systemically important” banks. Few debate that the expectation of bailouts provides banks little incentive to guard against excessive risk. Today the solutions being debated may elevate overall [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, coaching, innovation, magazine, mission, strategy, Talent Management, The Economist, vision

Fistful of beans 03/23/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Talent Does Not Live by Technology Alone — WriteforHR Globalized competition and the current economic climate should have revealed the realization of the right talent, in the right location, at the right cost as one of the biggest competitive advantages to organization performance. A talent management software [...]

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Tagged as: Bloomberg Businessweek, Chief Learning Officer, choice, fistfl, Inc., magazine, motivation, The Economist

Fistful of beans 03/16/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Screening for Resiliency Adaptability and Resilience — Talent Management Magazine Change is constant, whether we, as individuals, our team, or our organization like this reality, change demands resilience from people, teams, and organization. Change also causes constant challenges to some more than others. Those who adapt thrive, [...]

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Tagged as: adaptability, Boston Globe, CFO, diversity, Diversity Executive, Emotional Intelligence, fistful of beans, guilt, Ideas, magazine, resilience, Talent Management

Fistful of beans 03/09/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Keeping CEOs in Check — Human Resource Executive A recent study, “Dominant CEO, Deviant Strategy and Extreme Performance: The Moderating Role of a Powerful Board,” published in the February edition of the Journal of Management Studies finds: strong CEO at the helm shouldn’t underestimate the [...]

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Tagged as: Alan Mulally, Bloom, Bloomberg Businessweek, Boeing, Charlie Sheen, Deloitte Consulting, fistful, Ford, Human Resource Executive, Jack Welch, John Galliano, magazine, Mel Gibson, talent, The Economist

Fistful of beans 03/02/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Implementing Planned Change: An Empirical Comparison of Theoretical Perspectives — American Journal of Business Planned change has been viewed from a variety of conceptual perspectives, but few models of planned change we’ve all been part of have been studied using empirical research designs. With a study [...]

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Tagged as: age, American Journal of Business, Bloomberg Businessweek, change management, compensation, diversity, fistful of beans, IBM, Inc., magazine, The Economist

Fistful of beans 02/23/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed result 1. Talent Management vs Talent Analytics: The Difference is More than Just Semantics — Talent Analytics blog In the 1990s talent management emerged as a management practice to shift responsibility of employees an exclusive role for human resource departments to managers throughout the organization. The past 20 [...]

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Tagged as: Booz & Company, DNA of Human Capital, fistful of beans, Global Organization Design Society, M&A, magazine, mergers and acquisitions, Talent Analytics blog, The Economist

Fistful of beans 02/16/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. They’re Human Capital, Not Cattle — Talent Management Magazine This article was the best I’ve read in years. Each paragraph provides a contrarian alternative to challenge the command/control leaders and managers driving efficiency insanity. Though the terms “knowledge worker”, “knowledge economy”, and “human capital” have [...]

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Tagged as: Apple, Fast Company, human capital assessment, knowledge worker, M&A, magazine, YouTube

Fistful of beans 02/09/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Apple, With or Without Steve Jobs — Bloomberg Businessweek Perhaps there is a coincidence last week’s Fistful of Beans presented an article to divine Google’s possible transformation through their leadership queue, but it looks like Apple is heading into their own multiple-choice risk scenario. Now [...]

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Tagged as: Apple, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chief Learning Officer, CLO, diversity, Diversity Executive, fistful of beans, magazine, positive deviance, risk, scenario planning, strategy, The Atlantic

Fistful of beans 02/02/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Social-Media Frenzy — CFO When CFOs talk social media results that matter for top line growth, you know the message is clear. This looks at some of the tangible results from big companies that CFOs can really wrap their spreadsheets around. 2. Larry Page’s Google 3.0 [...]

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Tagged as: Bloomberg Businessweek, CFO, Chief Learning Officer, CLO, fistful of beans, Google, intelligence, magazine, The Atlantic, Wired

In review: Motivation management is resource management

January 2011 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Motivation management is resource management — Leaders, managers, and coworkers are all under intense pressure to manage their motivation to, firstly, show up at work and, secondly, deliver to their expectations and, yes, and to their organization’s expectations. Juggling our own professional motivation [...]

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Tagged as: ability, assessments, development, evaluation, information, motivation, resource, risk

Fistful of beans 01/26/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Capabilities-Driven Mergers & Acquisitions — Booz & Company A video conversation on the role that capabilities can have to drive successful, strategic mergers. This 18-minute, question and answer, interview-style video is broken down in 5 chapters: The New Meaning of Scale; The Path to Coherence; Capabilities Roadmapping; Integrating [...]

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Tagged as: Bloomberg Businessweek, Booz & Company, Chief Learning Officer, CLO, culture, engagement, fistful of beans, Gerald Adolph, Glock, HR Capitalist, innovation, magazine, mergers and acquisitions, Paul Leinwand, rewards

Fistful of beans 01/19/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. The tussle for talent — The Economist Successful companies integrate talent development with their broader strategy to ensure that companies are more than the sum of their parts. P&G, for example, likes its managers to be both innovative and worldly: they cannot rise to the [...]

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Tagged as: acquisition, fistful of beans, HR Capitalist, human capital assessment, magazine, strategy, talent, The Atlantic, The Economist, Wall Street Journal

Fistful of beans 01/12/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. New Year, New Measurement Challenges — Talent Management Magazine Measuring talent management effectiveness requires knowing the answer to questions such as “Is the organization attracting better quality applicants?” or “Is the organization retaining its most productive employees?” While relatively few organizations measure the effectiveness of [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, culture, fistful of beans, HR Capitalist, innovation, magazine, strategic planning, strategy+business, The Atlantic

Fistful of beans 01/05/2011

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Waiting, Wondering, Worrying — CFO Magazine What if 10% unemployment is the new normal? A view from your friendly C-suite, corner office about employment, human capital, and competition. Also some views on if layoffs and downsizing really benefit shareholders or benefit Wall Street analysts. What [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, CIO, consulting, employment, fistful of beans, Hulu, information technology, magazine

In review: Quality communication in social media

December 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Quality communication in social media (guest blog) — Helping doctoral students design quantitative research studies as well as analyzing and interpreting data dissertations occurred to me that some aspects of a doctoral dissertation could be applied to social media communications to make information [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, communication, development, EI, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, IQ, learning

Fistful of beans 12/29/2010

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Speed to Market: Increasing Knowledge Velocity — Chief Learning Officer Magazine The most pressing strategic learning need facing business today is managing knowledge needed by front-line performers. There is a prevailing belief that management knows best and front-line employees just need to be told [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Learning Officer, CLO, Fast Company, fistful of beans, human capital assessment, Human Resource Executive, human resources, influence, learning, social media, strategy, The Atlantic

Fistful of beans 12/22/2010

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Is the belief that mergers drive revenue growth a delusion? — McKinsey Quarterly To evaluate a merger’s success evaluate the impact on revenue. Revenue determines the outcome of a merger, not costs; whatever the merger’s objectives, revenue is what hits the bottom line harder. [...]

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Tagged as: advertising, Bloomberg Businessweek, Boston Globe, CFO, change, Chief Learning Officer, Competing Values Framework, EI, Emotional Intelligence, Fast Company, fistful of beans, intelligence, IQ, M&A, management, marketing 2.0, McKinsey, McKinsey Quarterly, media, mergers and acquisitions, strategy

Fistful of beans 12/15/2010

5 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Twitter for Talent — Talent Management Magazine A great take on social media and social networking productivity benefits and insights that can be used to round out formal performance and talent rating and ranking processes. 2. Saul Griffith’s House of Cool Ideas — Inc. Magazine Saul Griffith is [...]

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Tagged as: Boston Globe, Crash Course, Fast Company, fistful of beans, Inc., innovation, mergers, motivation, non-profit, Saul Griffith, talent, Twitter

In review: Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; stakeholder analysis template

October 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; stakeholder analysis template — Risk is anything that can positively or negatively effect the outcome of the project. So, identifying and managing stakeholders is step to identify and manage project risk. Each project has a [...]

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Tagged as: communication, impact, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, risk, scope, systems thinking, template

In review: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1

October 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1 — Leadership, management, and talent create and sustain organization success. The total environment of an organization is a major determinant of corporate choice and corporate success. A key to change is circular reasoning — Supporting the [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, cost of culture, leaders, risk, strategy, trust

In review: Golden parachutes reward risk or moral hazard?

September 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Golden parachutes reward risk or moral hazard? — No matter the solutions recently suggested, like England’s Cadbury and Hampel codes for public companies, America’s recent financial-reform act, or clawback clauses, there remains one conflict: business ethics will never win over moral hazard. The bureaucrat and bureaucracy revisited [...]

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Tagged as: Abraham Maslow, bureaucracy, bureaucrat, competency models, Competing Values Framework, Emotional Intelligence, golden parachute, Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory, innovation, moral hazard, organization performance, risk

What for-profits can learn from non-profits

For-profits commonly look down upon the management and staff of non-profits as woefully inefficient. Non-profits are hounded relentlessly to operate more like for-profits. An Economist article, Profiting from non-profits, writes about the reverse flow of innovation for-profits can gain from non-profits. When I mentioned non-profits, charities might come to mind first, but non-profits covers: hospitals, [...]

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Tagged as: cost of culture, for-profit, motivation, non-profit, private, strategy

Golden parachutes reward risk or moral hazard?

The July 31st Economist wrote an article called The wages of failure and brought an interesting perspective to those CEOs dismissed because or PR disasters. Do golden parachutes reward bad leadership or reward risk crucial for a firm to rebuild, re-imagine, and compete within capitalism? The article acknowledges the outrage many have to folks like [...]

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Tagged as: compensation, leadership, moral hazard, reform, risk, shareholder

In review: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media?

August 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media? — Do companies blow their social media efforts because they are afraid to fail, preferring to fall back on old marketing rules? The comments section offers a chance for Jonathan Salem [...]

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Tagged as: bureaucracy, cost of culture, hygiene, moral hazard, motivation, organization performance, performance review, project management, risk, small business

In review: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

July 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect — As a manager, running a team takes more than lining people up and pointing to the finish line. People are all not only motivated by salary. A leader or a manager may feel sabotaged when their [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, content, economy, innovation, investment, James Fallows, leadership, management, motivation, organization, project, talent, tax, The Atlantic, venture capital

Can you engineer regional innovation clusters?

Innovation comes from opportunity and diversity. Can diversity and innovation be engineered? We all see the newspaper pronouncements of local, state, or federal tax incentives to draw investors and to build innovation clusters . The key for clusters to succeed is for clusters to cultivate of high, value-add industries and supply chains as well as [...]

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Tagged as: Boston, cluster, innovation, investment, seed investment

Media’s two tribes – Rupert Murdoch’s Wall

In a follow up to July 12th’s post Media’s two tribes – charging for content Th Atlantic’s James Fallows reports The Times of London has placed their bet you will love their headlines so much you will pay for the opportunity to read the article. Click on any link within The Times and you are [...]

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Tagged as: content, Google, James Fallows, market, media, news, pricing, strategy, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal

How do you measure innovation: tax revenue

When we talk innovation, innovation is usually connected to a firm or a region. Interest with innovation at the regional level is usually couched in economic development. So, what is economic development other than politicians, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and glad-handing photo-ops? Why are so many incentive packages being offered? Tax havens being offered? Tax holidays? Who [...]

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Tagged as: goal, incentive, innovation, organization performance, performance management, policy

It’s true, your boss is a psychopath – UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE?

From the weekly, always insightful, Boston Globe Ideas Section, I give you this week’s UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE [their capitalization, not mine]. This section usually provides a hodge-podge of nuggets from the social sciences. This week’s lead: It’s true, your boss is a psychopath Watching the news some days, you’d think a lot of companies were run by [...]

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Tagged as: Boston Globe, Cornell HR Review, employment, human resources, management, skills, The Atlantic

The Great Spare-Time Revolution

Free time, spare time, where to find any time? Here’s a staggering thought for those who feel they have no spare time: it is estimated all the Wikipedia articles, edits, and arguments about articles and edits represent around 100 million hours of human labor. 100 million hours! Where do people find that time for a [...]

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Tagged as: Clay Shirky, Daniel Pink, leader, leadership, manage, motivate, motivation, time

A View: Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected

In the latest issue of Wired magazine Steven Levy’s article Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected is a good over view of what it might take to push the tablet into a new category of computing. Some quick hits: Tablets must be cheap enough to lose ~$149 [or cheap enough when you drop it/spill coffee/spill [...]

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Tagged as: communications, ebook, iPad, Kindle, Marketing, news, nook, table pc, tablet, technology

Notes from Boston: the state of US venture capital

This was originally posted in the nowEurope, where I was a brief contributor. nowEurope reported on technology innovation in Central Europe Centrope ICT Technology Transfer. CENTROPE is the integration and cooperation of the quadrangle borders between the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. Here is the article, as originally posted: In Boston, I recently attended the [...]

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Tagged as: Boston, entrepreneur, human capital assessment, investment, private equity, silicon valley, talent, VC

In review: Leaders and fishing

May 2009 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Leaders and fishing — Leaders craft the vision and convey how to embark on a course from what is to what could be. Leaders must rely on their managers to manage, but leaders need to roll their sleeves up and steward the message [...]

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Tagged as: buy in, change, change management, cost of culture, diversity, goals, leadership, leading, managing, resources, risk, stakeholders, vision

Quick Bio

Toby Elwin has lived around the world and worked globally with, and for, some of the most highly-respected leaders and organizations in their fields.

This site, and thoughts, are rooted in the role leadership and talent have on an organization's motivation to influence, achieve, and sustain.

Toby's work combines systems theory, organization development, marketing, and portfolio and project management from more than 15 years in post-merger integration.
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Blog Archives
Biggest Influences – So Far

See Influence page for more detail:

The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts

The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker, and Richard W. Beatty

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein

The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig

The Truth About Thriving in Change by William S. Kane

The Motivation to Work by Frederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, and Barbara Bloch Snyderman

The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

The HR Value Proposition by Dave Ulrich

The Strategy Paradox by Michael Raynor
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