Entries by moudahmed

“I’ve Gotta Be Me” – Always?

In his wonderful book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,” Marshall Goldsmith lists twenty habits that he claims often prevent successful people from becoming more successful.  The twentieth habit he calls “an excessive need to be me.”  Here his explanation of this habit: Each of us has a pile of behavior that we define as […]

Global, Local, or Glocal

As we all know, corporations are not immune to occasional accounts of hype and exaggeration.  You are no doubt familiar with the inflated claims that some firms make about their products and services.  The FDA and other government agencies sometimes have to step in and dismiss firms’ claims about the supposed efficacy of their products.  Just recently, for […]

Thin Slicing Across Cultures

In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term” thin slicing”, and this is how he described it: “(Thin-slicing)… is a central part of what it means to be human.  We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or reencounter a novel situation.  We thin-slice because we have […]

Mental Models of Cultural Adaptation

Kanji Nagano was a Japanese manager for a global financial services company in Tokyo.  Although well educated, having gone to one of Japan’s exclusive universities, he had never been out of the country and had always worked for Japanese companies.  He showed strong leadership qualities even when he was in school, where he was elected to many […]

Managing Talent in Global Organizations

As a young professional in an emerging market, would you rather work for a global multi-national or for a local company?  As recently as five years ago, this question was a “no-brainer” for many bright talented men and women in emerging markets like China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Chile.  Working for a global company, especially one with a […]

The Influential Global Business Leader

During a workshop that I conducted recently with a corporate client, I met Tom Walker, who had joined the company several months ago after a 20-year career with an agency of the federal government, where he was in charge of a department of 50 people.  In his new company, he also has a big staff, about […]

Are Narcissists Better Leaders?

We all know who they are – those narcissists who seem to rise quickly in organizations only to crash and burn eventually. We can point to failed corporate leaders such as Bob Nardelli of Home Depot, Tony Hayward of BP and Ken Lay of Enron as prime examples of such leaders. However, others point to […]

Principles of Persuasion for Global Managers

Professor Robert Cialdini’s groundbreaking research and his six principles of persuasion have been very influential with social scientists, marketers, and policy-makers, and have been applied in different contexts, from fund-raising to consumer and marketing research. Many of you are no doubt familiar with these principles of persuasion, which I summarize here: Liking: people like those […]

The Five Most Important Questions According to Peter Drucker

My favorite business writer, the late Peter Drucker, once wrote a slim but important book called The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization. The questions are clear and simple and seem intended for executives (especially those in non-profits) wishing to conduct a self-assessment about their organization. According to Drucker, this “self-assessment […]