If you’re a manager looking to set
goals and make resolutions for 2014, then I urge you to read this article
written by Adam Bryant of The New York Times.
This is a piece that I’ll be coming back to in upcoming workshops and
seminars.
Enjoy!
“We
aspire to be the largest small company in our space.”
When Dominic Orr, the chief
executive of Aruba Networks, said those words, he crystallized a goal I had
heard many leaders express during the hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted for
the Corner Office column: they want to foster a quick and nimble culture, with
the enviable qualities of many start-ups, even as their companies grow.
All leaders and managers face this
challenge, regardless of the size of their companies. Even the founders of
Google have worried about losing the magic that helped propel their search
engine’s phenomenal growth. When Larry Page announced that he was taking over
the chief-executive role from Eric Schmidt a few years ago, he explained to
reporters that the company needed to move faster and recapture the agility of
its early days, before it grew into a colossus.
“One
of the primary goals I have,” Mr. Page said at the time, “is to get Google to be a big company that
has the nimbleness and soul and passion and speed of a start-up.”
Discussions of corporate culture
can easily fall into platitudes and generalities, so I set out to answer a more
specific question: What are the main drivers of corporate culture — the things
that, if done well, have an outsize positive impact, and if done poorly or not
at all, have an outsize negative impact?
No comments:
Post a Comment