Articles

THE PROBLEM: When groups set goals, they tend to make sweeping statements and omit details essential to execution. So even if people know what needs to be done, they often don't deliver.

THE SOLUTION: Use if-then planning to express organizational and team goals. This creates an explicit motivational link between the ideal situation for execution and the desired behavior, producing a powerful trigger for action.

THE RESEARCH: Though most if-then research focuses on individuals, recent studies show a positive effect on team performance as well. If-then plans sharpen groups' focus and help members get things done.

Project Planning

Time Management

Employee Engagement

THE PROBLEM: Executives often discover that their best time-management intentions are overwhelmed by the demands and practices of the organization.

THE SOLUTION: Some companies have taken a new approach. They treat time as a scarce resource and bring as much discipline to their time budgets as to their capital budgets.

THE DETAILS: The new approach follows eight practices: • Setting selective agendas • Using a zero-based time budget • Requiring a business case for each initiative • Simplifying the organization • Delegating authority for time investments • Standardizing the decision process • Making time discipline organization-wide • Using feedback to manage organizational load. These practices enable companies to curb time pressure on executives, lower costs, and boost productivity.

Project Management

Time Management

THE PROBLEM: Senior executives in this generation feel they can't achieve "balance" through constant juggling, which prevents them from engaging meaningfully either at work or at home.

THE SOLUTION: They find that they're more focused—and effective—when they make deliberate choices about which opportunities to pursue in both realms.

THE OUTCOME: Leaders who carefully manage their own human capital in this way maintain a higher degree of satisfaction professionally and personally.

Work-life

Time Management

Ferguson’s Formula. Harvard Business Review. XX:19-28.

THE RECORD: Before his retirement in May, after 26 years in charge at the English football club Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson was perhaps the most successful coach in all of sports. United won the English league 13 times during his tenure, along with 25 other domestic and international trophies.

THE QUESTION: What were the methods behind Ferguson’s success, and can they be applied beyond the playing field?

THE LESSONS: Ferguson’s approach can be broken down into eight leadership principles, ranging from the value of standing back and observing to the specifics of preparing to win.

Program Management

Project Management