Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog

The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

Follow me on Twitter

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Here are five choice articles from the business press to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about voting for your favorite entrepreneur, analyzing operational failures, simulation for better decision-making, changing business schools (or not), and what CEOs can learn from commandos. 

From Inc: Vote for your favorite entrepreneurial leader of all time
"Who had a greater impact on American business: Henry Ford or the Google guys? The founders of pioneering software companies, airlines, or retail chains? The answers to this question will tell us not only where we've been, but maybe where we're going economically. So Inc. wants you to vote for the person you think is the greatest American entrepreneur of all time. A list of the top 30 entrepreneurs will be published in December. To keep tabs on the voting over the course of the next few months, check the tag clouds on the following pages. Profiles of the nominees will be added a few at a time, and you may vote as much as you want."

Wally's Comment: Stop by. Vote. Check the list. Tell Inc who they missed. It's fun, even if the initial list skips right over a whole chunk of the Twentieth Century.

From HBS Working Knowledge: Operational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting
"Operational failures occur within organizations across all industries, with consequences ranging from minor inconveniences to major catastrophes. How can managers encourage frontline workers to solve problems in response to operational failures? In the health-care industry, the setting for this study, operational failures occur often, and some are reported to voluntary incident reporting systems that are meant to help organizations learn from experience. Using data on nearly 7,500 reported incidents from a single hospital, the researchers found that problem-solving in response to operational failures is influenced by both the risk posed by the incident and the extent to which management demonstrates a commitment to problem-solving. Findings can be used by organizations to increase the contribution of incident reporting systems to operational performance improvement."

Wally's Comment: Businesses don't spend much time conducting after-action critiques the way the military and public safety agencies do. Maybe if they did, they would get better results.

From Information Week: Smarter Information, Not More
"With the rapid advance of gaming technology, simulation can train workers to make better decisions."

Wally's Comment: Simulation is a technique that gets much easier to use with good technology. The danger is thinking that reality will always conform to the model.

From the Economist: The pedagogy of the privileged
"THIS has been a year of sackcloth and ashes for the world’s business schools. Critics have accused them of churning out jargon-spewing economic vandals. Many professors have accepted at least some of the blame for the global catastrophe. Deans have drawn up blueprints for reform. The result? Precious little. Business schools have introduced a few new courses. Students at Harvard Business School (HBS) have introduced a voluntary pledge “to serve the greater good” among other worthy goals, which about half of this year’s graduates embraced. But for the most part it is business schooling as usual."

Wally's Comment: Did you expect the business schools to change after the recent economic debacle? I sure didn't. And guess what? We were right.

From Forbes: What CEOs Can Learn from Commandos
"I left the British Royal Marines to enter the business world after 20 years of service. I was acutely aware that I was entering a totally different environment. I expected to learn countless lessons about business theory and responding to consumer needs. I never imagined how much I would rely on my military experience. In fact, in my 10 years advising global corporations on business performance execution, I have been struck time and again by how many of the military's teachings apply, and how many valuable lessons business should be taking from the military. Here are some of the most important."

Wally's Comment: The key to learning from the military is to adapt military practice to a very different environment.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.