7 out of 10 CEO’s believe in miracles

Sounds a bit absurd? Managers are, after all, rational beings – hard working people, driven by goals and high ambitions. Managers make plans and deliver, don’t they? There’s no way these managers can really believe in miracles - right? It is our contention that the opposite is true. Many managers simply turn a blind eye to the obvious and hope for the best. Picture this scenario. You are a part of a management team and you have just completed this year’s business plan. You’ve put in a lot of work for a long time, and are quite pleased with the…

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Responsibility without power – a corporate contradiction in terms

In many company cultures, the word “responsibility” doesn’t really signify real responsibility. The dictionary says: Responsibility, having an obligation to do something, or having control over or care for someone, as part of one's job or role. Responsibility without control, power to make decisions and act, is offloading real responsibility to a superior. However, the really interesting thing about this issue is what happens to people when they do get real responsibility. Responsibility awakens our personal history in us. Most of us lived through a childhood where responsibility lay with our parents. Living many years with parents having the responsibility…

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Digitalisation gives you the tools for solving the eternal paradoxes of management

Atlas Copco, one of Sweden’s most successful companies, is a long-time advocate of a decentralised organisation, where responsibility is distributed deep into individual business units, enabling them to conduct their own business in their own way. Over the last few years, two of the biggest companies in Sweden, Sandvik and Volvo, have begun to leave a highly centralised management in favour of decentralised business responsibility. Does that mean this issue is settled once and for all? Do we now have the final verdict? Probably not. We are talking about one of many eternal conflicts with which management has to struggle.…

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