Bresnahan's Shorts* - May 2006

*Short topics

The 21st-Century Organization

Professional workers, who create value through intangible assets such as brands and networks, now constitute up to 25% or more of the workforce in financial services, health care, high tech, pharmaceuticals, and media and entertainment.

Making professionals productive enables big corporations to be competitive, yet most of them do little to improve the productivity of these employees. Corporate organizational structures designed vertically, with matrix and ad hoc overlays make professional work more complex and inefficient.

Companies must change their organizational structures dramatically to unleash the power of their professionals and to capture the opportunities of today's economy.

Excerpted from The McKinsey Quarterly 12/05

Top of Page

Young Workers Weigh in on Values

Young Americans entering the workforce overwhelmingly value honesty and integrity, with 92% saying they believe that doing the right thing is more important than getting ahead in their careers - but there is also a strong undercurrent of competing values, placing loyalty to friends, love, and getting ahead personally above honesty in business dealings.

The Zogby International survey finds that, despite 92% of young adults who say they value doing the right thing more than getting ahead in their careers, and 96% saying honesty and trust are important in the workplace, when faced with a number of potential ethical dilemmas, a substantial number are more likely to value loyalty to friends (43%) or forbidden office romances (32%) - and as many as one-third (34%) say that the cost of doing the right thing is sometimes too high.

The WAG June 29, 2005

Top of Page

Identify Your Company Personality

The Harvard Business Review published a study of seven prevailing organization types. The authors have discovered that the most common type is the far-from-healthy passive-aggressive variety, where lines of authority are unclear, merit is not rewarded, and people have learned to smile, nod, and do just enough to get by.

Here are the category types and how workers identify their companies:

Healthy Organizations:

• 17% Resilient - Highly adaptable to external market shifts, yet focused and aligned behind a coherent business strategy.
• 10% Just-in-Time - Inconsistently prepared for change but can rise to an unanticipated challenge without losing sight of the big picture.
• 4% Military Precision - Dominated by a small, involved senior team; succeeds through superior execution and the efficiency of its operation.

Unhealthy Organizations :

• 27% Passive-Aggressive - Congenial and seemingly conflict free, achieves consensus easily, but struggles to implement agreed-upon plans.
• 10% Outgrown - Too large and complex to be effectively controlled by a small team, but has yet to democratize decision-making authority.
• 9% Overmanaged - It's multiple layers of management create analysis paralysis and also politicize decision making.
• 8% Fits-and-Starts - Contains scores of smart, motivated, and talented people who rarely pull in the same direction at the same time.
• 15% - Inconclusive organization type

The wag, e-newsletter of Worthwhile magazine, 10/12/05

How would you identify your company? If you fall into the unhealthy category, give us a call.

Top of Page

Bresnahan Wins Award

Mary Bresnahan has been awarded "Member of the Year" from the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Chicago. The award comes as a result of Bresnahan's work over the last year and a half to design, develop and implement Connecting Points. These are small gatherings of women business owners throughout the Chicago metropolitan area to discuss business and build business relationships.

The Member-to-Member Relations Committee chaired by Mary and responsible for Connecting Points, grew from 3 to 11. Over 100 NAWBO members, and perspective members, have taken advantage of this new benefit.

Bresnahan also authored a monthly column in the NAWBO Chicago newsletter describing business connections amongst members.

The award will be conferred at the NAWBO Achievement Luncheon on May 11th at the Hilton Chicago - www.NAWBOChicago.org.

Top of Page

Thoughts to Ponder

"The art of communication is the language of leadership." — James Humes

"In the works of Nature, purpose, not accident, is the main thing." — Aristotle

Top of Page

Client's Corner

How important is acceptance? Some people revealed in a survey that they did not feel accepted. Umm. Where did that come from? With time, I learned that there were Hispanics speaking Spanish while they worked with a non-Spanish- speaking employee. As many times as the employee said something to them, they continued to speak amongst themselves. Result: the feeling of not being accepted persisted and deepened.

In another situation, the Hispanics would not accept direction from an African- American female supervisor. Another example of "lack of acceptance."

Why do I mention this? Acceptance is an element of trust. The values that make up this element are respect and recognition. These individual's are not building trust with other employees.

The other question is, what to do? Get the Hispanic group together and talk about times when they do not feel they have the acceptance of others. Maybe this is at the core of the behaviors.

Of course, another important question is, "How accepting are you?" We need to be a role model for others. With all this said, it still is not an easily resolved situation.

Top of Page

Responsibility-based Organizations

Learn more about how to achieve your organizational vision and accountability by going to our affiliate website, www.integroleadership.com.

Top of Page

More Information

For more information about any of these topics contact us at 505-922-1973 or email BresGroup @ 4u.net.

Newsletter Archive