Weekly Pulse is a content curation and highlights from readings, books, videos, podcasts, insights, ramblings and other interesting things I discovered and digested during the week.
So, let's go with some discoveries from the week!
#1 - Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change
#2 - Enterprise Agility: Buzz or Business Impact?
#3 - When Data Creates Competitive Advantage
#4 - 11 Realities About Being Productive
#5 - People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much
#6 - The Stockholm Syndrome
#7 - Book Notes: Head First, A Crash Course in Positivity - Steve H. Lawton
Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change
Source: Harvard Business ReviewAuthor: Michael Beer, Russell A. Eisenstat and Bert Spector
Year: 1990
Summary: Two years after launching a change program to counter competitive threats, a bank CEO realized his effort had produced…no change. Surprisingly, he and his top executives had reviewed the company’s purpose and culture, published a mission statement, and launched programs designed to push change throughout the organization. But revitalization doesn’t come from the top...
3 Highlights:
"... Revitalization starts at an organization’s periphery, led by unit managers creating ad hoc arrangements to solve concrete problems..."
"... Remove functional and hierarchical barriers to information sharing and problem-solving—by changing roles and responsibilities, not titles or compensation..."
"... But while senior managers understand the necessity of change to cope with new competitive realities, they often misunderstand what it takes to bring it about..."
Enterprise Agility: Buzz or Business Impact?
Source: McKinseyAuthor: Wouter Aghina, Christopher Handscomb, Jesper Ludolph, Dániel Róna, and Dave West
Year: 2020
Summary: Enterprise agility was desirable and is now becoming essential. Many organizations are racing to become agile. New research suggests that agile transformation can have a powerful impact on the bottom line — in addition to other widely recognized benefits.
3 Highlights:
"... Although cost savings is seldom the primary objective of an agile transformation, it is a natural consequence of the improved operational performance and ability to provide the same outcomes with fewer people..."
"... Agile organizations can quickly redirect their people and priorities toward value-creating opportunities. A common misconception is that stability and scale must be sacrificed for speed and flexibility..."
"... Using enterprise agility to meet rapidly changing customer needs can result, unsurprisingly, in a better customer journey..."
When Data Creates Competitive Advantage
Source: Harvard Business ReviewAuthor: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright
Year: 2020
Summary: Nevertheless, under the right conditions, customer data can help build competitive defenses. It all depends on whether the data offers high and lasting value, is proprietary, leads to improvements that can’t be easily imitated, or generates insights that can be quickly incorporated. Those characteristics do give firms an advantage.
3 Highlights:
"... Even when customer data does confer a competitive advantage, it gives rise to network effects only infrequently. And that advantage may not last..."
"... In the decades ahead, improving offerings with customer data will be a prerequisite for staying in the game, and it may give incumbents an edge over new entrants..."
"... In many cases nearly all the benefits of learning from customer data can be achieved with relatively low numbers of customers..."
11 Realities About Being Productive
Source: Carl Pullein BlogAuthor: Carl Pullein
Year: 2018
Summary: The reality is there are no shortcuts and there are no magic apps out there and there is never likely to be in the future either. If you need to do the work, you have to do the work. Becoming more productive is not difficult, but you do need to be very clear about your work.
3 Highlights:
"... The only way to get the work done is to do the work..."
"... Complaining about disruptions and distractions is not dealing with the problem..."
"... Not knowing your outcome before you start will result in failure and delays..."
People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much
Source: The AtlanticAuthor: Ian Bogost
Year: 2021
Summary: A lot is wrong with the internet, but much of it boils down to this one problem: We are all constantly talking to one another. Take that in every sense. Before online tools, we talked less frequently, and with fewer people. The average person had a handful of conversations a day, and the biggest group she spoke in front of was maybe a wedding reception or a company meeting, a few hundred people at most.
3 Highlights:
"... Your social life has a biological limit: 150. That’s the number—Dunbar’s number, proposed by the British psychologist Robin Dunbar three decades ago—of people with whom you can have meaningful relationships..."
"... To constrain the frequency of speech, the size or composition of an audience, the spread of any single speech act, or the life span of such posts is entirely accordant with the creative and technical underpinning of computational media..."
"... Online media gives every person access to channels of communication previously reserved for Big Business..."
The Stockholm Syndrome
Source: William Meller - New articleSummary: The phenomenon known as Stockholm syndrome refers to a paradoxical relationship between a captive and a captor in which the captive displays a strong sense of bonding to the captor in such a way that he/she is willing to help or protect the captor even from law enforcement agencies who might be on the trail of the captor to bring him/her to justice.
3 Highlights:
"... Corporate Stockholm Syndrome can be defined as employees of a business beginning to identify with—and being deeply loyal to—an employer who mistreats them..."
"... The employee experiencing Corporate Stockholm Syndrome typically displays a tendency to become emotionally attached to the company to the detriment of their own emotional health..."
"... The company culture in which Corporate Stockholm Syndrome thrives will have certain traits. It will often tolerate — in fact implicitly encourage — employees to verbally abuse each other when someone isn’t seen as working hard enough or not being a 'team player'..."
Book Notes: Head First, A Crash Course in Positivity - Steve H. Lawton
Source: William Meller - Book NotesThis story will make you laugh and cry, and the 8 practical positivity principles will help you improve your attitude and overcome struggles in life.
Steve Lawton makes an excellent case for the value of cultivating a positive mindset before you encounter a challenge—like an athlete building muscles and stamina that will serve her well when she has to run a race or enter a competition.
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