“Mark brings up the point that a poorly designed system only leads to frustration on the part of employees. This can be part of a larger problem ó learned helplessness. When employees have learned through experience that they can have little impact on the dysfunctional work environment they find themselves in, they give up trying.”

“This posting was inspired by Peter Drucker’s Manager’s Journal article in the June 1, 2004 Wall Street Journal titled The Rules of Executive Class. The article was adapted from his article ‘What Makes an Effective Executive’ appearing in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review. Mr. Drucker argues that effective executives don’t need to be charismatic out-going leaders. Who am I to argue with Peter Drucker? So I won’t. I’ll use his eight prescribed practices to develop a list for those people who are in the role of project executive.”

Instead of looking to a single person for the right answers, companies need to recognize a simple truth: Under the right conditions, groups are smarter than the smartest person within them. We often think of groups and crowds as stupid, feckless, and dominated by the lowest common denominator. But take a look around. The crowd at a racing track does an uncannily good job of forecasting the outcome, better in fact than just about any single bettor can do… By contrast, while it’s clear that some CEOs are excellent leaders and managers, there’s little evidence that individual executives are blessed with consistently good strategic foresight. In fact, in an extensive study of intelligent CEOs who made disastrous decisions, Dartmouth’s Sydney Finkelstein writes, ‘CEOs should come with the same disclaimer as mutual funds: Past success is no guarantee of future success.’”