Soft business, hard profits
Shukan Daiyamondo has just run my interview with Michael Stallard about his concept of the connected culture. Stallard argues that U.S. productivity would be substantially higher if businesses would develop such a culture, one in which
People are motivated by the mission or they’re united by the values…everyone in the organization appreciates their colleagues’ positive unique contributions, and they help each other achieve their potential…. (and) people seek the ideas of others intentionally, they share their ideas and opinions honestly.
It might sound smarmy, but then again, if it would really make a company more profitable, shouldn’t it be worth a try?
Here’s my World Voice with Stallard.
May 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
[…] Michael Fitzgerald who writes for The Economist, The New York Times and other thought-leading publications just published in Japan’s Shukan Diayamondo an interview he did with me about Connection Cultures. Michael posted the pre-translation English version on his Archimedes’ Hot Tub blog. When I worked for Morgan Stanley in the late 1990s, I spent some time in Japan analyzing the market to determine if it made sense to build or buy an Japanese investment trust business. I concluded that Japanese stock broker’s culture was so different from Morgan Stanley’s that any acquisition would unwise. From my brief exposure to Japan it seemed to me that employee engagement was low, at least in the securities business. It may have been different in the automotive and other industries. Does anyone have any experience working in Japan and would share their thoughts with us about employee engagement in the country? These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]