Rotman Management

The Biggest Lies About Work

You have said that for leaders, having a great plan in place is no longer the route to success. What is the better approach?

The problem with plans in today’s world is that, by the time you’ve figured out how to put them into action, the world has already moved on — and you’re addressing the recent past rather than the future. A better approach is to share as much real-time information about the world as possible by building what we call ‘intelligence systems’ throughout your organization, so that people are aware of what is going on around them, know what other teams are up to, and can chart the best course to success.

In addition to building intelligence systems, leaders must be really, really clear about what the team and the organization are trying to achieve. If people have these two ingredients, they usually come up with the best course of action.

One of the ‘lies about work’ you write about is that ‘people care about which company they work for’. You believe they care much

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