GAHZLY

What business axiom or management principle have you discovered to help you live better, work smarter, or to understand organizations in a way that is unique, funny or provides that rare but special “ah ha” moment? An example of a well known business axiom is the famous “Peter Principle” (1) that states: “People rise to their level of incompetence.” Explaining how incompetent people can achieve executive and high level political positions without any management or leadership skills provides some understanding to why so many businesses and governments may fail. There are many corollaries to this intriguing concept that may explain government and business poor performance. Perhaps major decisions also rise to their level of incompetence. That is, the more critical a decision, the more probable is that it will be taken away from the people with expertise and be decided either in a steering committee (to avoid any accountability) or at the C-Suite or gove...

Corporate politics are everywhere. They inflict every company. In fact, you’d be hard put to find a senior manager out there who has completely avoided the fray. Depending how far you make it up the corporate ladder, you’ll feel the heat the higher up you go. Executives and professionals talk about it all the time, especially over cocktails, but rarely in formal discussions or meetings. If it does come up in a formal setting, it is likely brought up as “We need to reinvigorate culture.” And if you are running a new business in a large company that is developing or trying to develop a product or solution that is disruptive to the mainstream business, then you are likely drowning in corporate politics. That certainly was my personal experience in running a business group that was creating new computers and devices for people living at the bottom of the pyramid. Any product we created would match Clayton Christensen’s definition of a disruptive innovation: i.e...