Our weekly roundup highlights links to articles and talks to help you be a more effective leader.
Yoplait Learns to Manufacture Authenticity to Go With Its Yogurt (NYT)
“Eventually a choice was needed. Yoplait, based in Minneapolis, is part of General Mills, the huge international food conglomerate, which prides itself on cleareyed, data-driven decision-making. Cold, hard numbers — not passion — have made Cheerios, Green Giant and Betty Crocker into colossal brands. ‘We’re disciplined,’ David Clark, a 26-year company veteran, told me. ‘That’s why we succeed.'”
Every Manager Can Become A Better Leader By Asking This One Question (Forbes)
“HighGround surveyed 525 managers and 525 employees in a variety of industries, including technology, financial services, retail and health care. It found that only 43% of managers ask their employees how they can be better managers.”
- Are You a Collaborative Leader? (HBR)
“Watching his employees use a new social technology, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, had an epiphany. His company had developed Chatter, a Facebook inspired application for companies that allows users to keep track of their colleagues and customers and share information and ideas. The employees had been trying it out internally, not just within their own work groups but across the entire organization. As Benioff read the Chatter posts, he realized that many of the people who had critical customer knowledge and were adding the most value were not even known to the management team.”