Reflections on Management Tom Galvin

In this episode, I address a couple of critical points that drive what information is retained and what is withheld -- Who owns the information and who determines its value? And do our methods of establishing ownership and appraising knowledge make sense?

In this episode, I present the process-based meta-narrative that addresses organizational actions. Going beyond the simple models of flowcharts or sequences of steps, these metanarratives capture the ranges of possible outcomes and the paths to get there.

In this episode, I present the preference-based meta-narrative that helps explain the way that decision makers deal with complexity -- both in terms of developing and selecting alternatives and in terms of the emotions that the decision generates.

In this episode, I present the stream meta-narrative that helps capture sequences of interdependent processes that naturally flow from some sort of inputs to some sort of outputs. These metanarratives help explain complex decision spaces. I'll also give relevant examples.

In this episode, I talk about how I streamline the corporate vocabulary in the previous episode and use it to develop a meta-narrative that summarizes the full set of experiences in the organization by levels of deviation from the norm. Sound complicated, but hopefully you'll find it isn't.

Words matter, and sometimes the terms used in an organizational setting differ from common definitions and therefore create confusion. This is doubly difficult for an outside observer who is trying to understand the organization's behavior. I present an icebreaker exercise in this episode I use to help expose how different people define things.