Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.
"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war," General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter. The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan. "PowerPoint makes us stupid," ...
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Ten Management Practices to Axe There is a plethora of advice out there, here are some that should be removed from the list.
So you've studied all the best sellers about how to make yourself into a better manager? Well, you can't believe everything you read.
Every few years, a management book or philosophy emerges to change our thinking about the best ways to lead employees. From The One Minute Manager to Who Moved My Cheese?, new and revived leadership concepts have shaped the way we organize, evaluate, inspire, and reward team members. With so many
competing management theories in the mix, some ill-conceived practices were bound to take hold-and indeed, many have. Here's our list of the 10 most brainless and injurious:...
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The special charm that makes leaders so effective and appealing isn't a birthright. You can work at acquiring it.
Even at a round table, someone sits at the head. And that applies in every occupation. It's not always the brightest in the business specialty or the one who produces measurable results. It's someone who is memorable, impressive, credible, genuine, trusted, liked, cool, calm, collected, comfortable, and confident-er,
charismatic. Executive charisma is the determining factor behind why two people who enter similar careers with comparable intelligence, ambition, education, experience, and competence achieve vastly different levels of success. Armed with executive charisma, you can sit at the head of the round table and have
influence even when you have no power. Executive charisma is...
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Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury Dept.'s pay czar, recently reduced executive salaries at government-controlled American International Group and General Motors to reflect company performance.
In much of Corporate America, as Bloomberg Businessweek first reported in its Apr. 5 issue, no such realignment took place. Graef Crystal, a pioneer in compensation consulting, analyzed the 2009 pay of 271 chief executive officers. His findings? "Simply put," Crystal says, "companies don't pay for performance." Although
there is no standard method for analyzing compensation, Crystal, 76, developed the formulas he uses over the course of 30 years advising companies such as...
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There are a variety of wearable fitness trackers, scales, sleep monitors, and other health-monitoring gadgets available.
Businessweek.com asked corporate wellness experts and active employees to name some of their favorites. The following products use sensors that measure users' weight, physical activity, caloric intake, and sleep. Many are wearable and connect to a PC to create a Web record of the information they record.
Read on to see which might be right for you...
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In the wake of scandal and economic crisis, even the most firmly rooted traditions of corporate leadership are in upheaval.
Where the old guard once ruled from lofty offices and stuffy boardrooms, new leadership is emerging from the trenches of a more diverse, global and younger demographic. Fresh ideas are the new currency, and a person's ability to generate those ideas and express them clearly is directly related to personality.
Who they are will determine not only how they lead, but also the overall effectiveness of those around them. From leading-edge tech companies, such as...
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If charging the highest price isn't the best strategy, then what is?
Most companies charge what the market will bear. In other words, they charge as high a price as they can. But that isn't the best strategy in two respects. First, it neglects other potential means of profiting from delivering superior value--means that could result in greater overall profit. And second, it weakens...
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How smart entrepreneurs are finding money and happiness in an office-free life. On a chilly Monday morning in early February, 30-odd reporters, editors, designers, and the rest of the sundry crew that makes this magazine gathered in a conference room to discuss our next issue. These monthly meetings are typically a time to talk about how stories are coming along, plan art assignments,
and make small talk. But this meeting was different, because the issue we were planning -- the physical magazine you are holding in your hands -- would be produced by a company that was not itself entirely physical. When our meeting concluded, we walked back to our desks, packed our things, and headed home. Our
experiment had officially begun. We were temporarily turning Inc. into a virtual company...
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Driven to distraction Worry about real issues, don't invent them, they only get in the way.
Along with his sons, Jerry Murrell of Five Guys Burgers and Fries built a 570-store chain that enjoys a cult following.
Sell a really good, juicy burger on a fresh bun. Make perfect French fries. Don't cut corners. That's been the business plan since Jerry Murrell and his sons opened their first burger joint in 1986. When they began selling franchises in 2002, the family had just five stores in northern Virginia. Today, there are 570 stores across
the U.S. and Canada, with 2009 sales of $483 million. Overseeing the opening of about four new restaurants a week, the Murrells are proof that flipping burgers doesn't have to be a dead-end job...
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There's good reason why 40% of executives describe themselves as introverts.
From discount broker Charles Schwab to Avon chief executive Andrea Jung, "innies" possess these traits of quiet leadership:...
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