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Here are five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about Carl Icahn, going viral the wrong way, the making of the balanced scorecard, how leadership thinking has changed in the last generation, and an interview with Henry Mintzberg.

From the NY Times: Does Icahn Still Make Them Tremble?
"He is a billionaire several times over. He has spent the better part of four decades terrorizing corporate chiefs and battling entrenched boards. His name is emblazoned on a stadium on an island in the East River, a laboratory at Princeton, a science center at the Choate Rosemary Hall school in Connecticut and charter schools in the Bronx. Yet, for all of his high-profile successes, Carl C. Icahn says he feels misunderstood. "

Wally's Comment: Carl Icahn wanted to be a physician once. Now he appears in the press with descriptions like "corporate raider," "shareholder activist," and "billionaire investor." But that doesn't tell you a lot about him. Julie Creswell's article does. You may also want to read a Times interview with Icahn from 2005.

From the Globe and Mail: Kit Kat spat goes viral despite Nestlé's efforts
"Now you see it, now you don't. Wait: Now you do. A global game of Whack-a-Mole broke out Wednesday on the Internet when YouTube removed a gruesome anti-Nestlé commercial by Greenpeace after the multinational food giant complained, only to have viewers flock to the video-sharing site Vimeo.com, where the spot became an instant cause célèbre because of the reputed censorship."

Wally's Comment: There are lots of articles about how social media can be great for companies. Here's one that gives you an idea of how the world of social media is changing and why trying to squash bad video about you is a very bad idea indeed.

From HBS Working Knowledge: Conceptual Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard
"This article documents the precursors of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) strategic performance management tool and describes the evolution of the BSC since its introduction in 1992 in the Harvard Business Review. During the last 15 years, the BSC has been adopted by thousands of private, public, and nonprofit enterprises around the world. HBS professor Robert S. Kaplan, who created the concept and tool with David Norton, explains the roots and motivation for their original article as well as subsequent innovations that connect it to a larger management literature."

Wally's Comment: The abstract gives you an overview of the key points in the working paper. That may be all you want. But the full paper gives you a wonderful perspective on how management/measurement thinking has changed in the last twenty years. If that interests you, you can download a PDF of the full paper which runs 33 pages.

Kaplan and Norton's book is The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action. I posted on the concept with the title "How balanced is your scorecard?"

From Psychology Today: Leadership 101: How Leadership Has Changed in the Last Generation
"Scholars, and people generally, look at leadership in a very different way than they did a generation ago. Leadership was seen as something that was straightforward, done "by the book," and could be easily learned. Leadership today is a lot more complicated."

Wally's Comment: Here's another article on how things have changed in twenty years. Read this article and you will learn what the most popular leadership theories are today, viewed from a psychologist's perspective. If you're a working manager, that part of the article is interesting, but not real helpful. Keep reading, though, and you'll find some clear statements about how leadership thinking has changed in the last couple of decades. Then read the interview with Henry Mintzberg below.

From Strategy + Business: Management by Reflection
"Managing author Henry Mintzberg believes that to improve business schools, we must first understand the essence of what managers do."

Wally's Comment: Henry Mintzberg is one of the most provocative thinkers in management education today. Like the late Russell Ackoff, Mintzberg has a practical perspective and a superb BS filter. My favorite insight from this piece: management education would be a lot more effective if the educators would spend more time researching what managers actually do and less time constructing theories.

If you enjoy this article, you may also like my post, "Can leadership be taught?" and you may want to pick up a copy of Bob Prosen's excellent book, Kiss Theory Goodbye. Be sure to read Mintzberg's latest book: Management.

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.