Solving the Mystery of Measuring Team Performance
Behavior-Based Diagnostics Help Fix What Surveys Miss Team performance problems rarely announce themselves. They show up as missed handoffs, quiet frustration and decisions that never quite turn into action. Leaders usually have a sense that something is off. Perhaps...
Action Intelligence: A New Framework for the Next Era of AI
New Realities and Workflows Require New Frameworks For every organization truly benefiting from Artificial Intelligence today, hundreds more simply talk about it. They host webinars, publish white papers and sprinkle “AI‑powered” across their marketing decks. Yet they...
Organizational Development Can Fill Leadership Pipelines
Developing People Who Drive Performance and Change Technology alone cannot fill a company’s leadership pipelines. That means human decision-making still drives success. That’s true even in an era of expanding artificial intelligence capabilities. While AI...
Organizational Development: The Chocolate of Leadership
What I Learned about the Missing Ingredient in Business Success I’ll admit I’m kind of late to the importance of Organizational Development. For decades, I concentrated on leadership because I needed to lead organizations. And I led many organizations, including...
The Future of Work Is Here — and It’s Not Going Back
Organizational Development Helps You Move from Command and Control to Agile and Distributed A funny thing happened on the way back to the office – we didn’t all go. For many, the future of work is not in an office space. Remember the headlines last year? CEOs pounding...
Brain Drain – The Iceberg to Your Titanic
Employee Exodus Creates Talent Gap That Leaves Organizations Vulnerable After the iceberg hit, the Titanic went fast. Brain drain will sink your enterprise just as effectively – although organizational death might take a bit longer. Organizations have dealt with...
The Perils of Top-Down Management and RTO Mandates
Chaos at Amazon Shows Disconnect Between Leadership and Reality My three industrial engineering degrees drove home the perils of top-down management early on. Leading companies for decades reinforced what I learned at Purdue. So, I’m not surprised at the chaos...
For Trump, It’s Leadership at the Speed of Business
Flexible Planning, Strategic Execution Turns Negotiation into a High-Stakes Masterclass I wear two hats. Dr. James A. Tompkins analyzes supply chains, while Jim Tompkins studies leadership. For many nights, I have not been able to sleep as “Jim.” Like many...
The Worker Motivation and Flexible Work Debate, Circa 2025
Humans Aren’t Pigeons, and There Are Only So Many Things You Can Drive Can leaders drive results? Drive growth and profits? Drive worker motivation and employee engagement? I think not. You can drive cattle or golf balls. But driving people for results,...
AI in Business Will Enable the Autonomous Organization
Unlike Warehouse Evolution, This Shift Will Be Rapid The evolution of AI in business reminds me of the evolution of warehousing, logistics and supply chain. For business, that evolution will digitally enable the autonomous organization. Back in 1975, I was an...