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Bank of America: Yesterday and Today

Coaching Tip

Giannini, a son of Italian immigrants, founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco with the vision that banks should serve more than the fortunate few. . Rushing into the shattered city, he managed to have $80,000 in gold loaded onto a horse cart covered with vegetables before fire consumed the bank building. More than 1.3

Banking 105
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Bureaucracy Must Die

Harvard Business Review

Prahalad and I urged managers to think in a different way about the building blocks of competitive success. Managers assess performance. It is the unchallenged tenets of bureaucracy that disable our organizations—that make them inertial, incremental and uninspiring. To manage” is “to control.”. “To Tasks are assigned.

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Bureaucracy Must Die

Harvard Business Review

Prahalad and I urged managers to think in a different way about the building blocks of competitive success. Managers assess performance. It is the unchallenged tenets of bureaucracy that disable our organizations—that make them inertial, incremental and uninspiring. To manage” is “to control.”. “To Tasks are assigned.

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Bureaucracy is a Bogeyman

Harvard Business Review

The dictionary says bureaucracy is a means of coordinating activities through standardized rules and procedures. We might not like the idea of Italian bureaucracy very much, but it beats having Silvio Berlusconi in charge. And I always push back when they say bureaucracy is the problem. What exactly is going wrong, I ask them?

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How Managers Should Respond When Bribes Are Business as Usual

Harvard Business Review

Yet, according to the World Bank , roughly one-third of firms around the world use kickbacks, paying an estimated total of $400 billion a year. You would factor $30,000 to $60,000 in certain places just to address the bureaucracy that they put in place.” “That’s enlightened management.”

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Don’t Set Process Without Input from Frontline Workers

Harvard Business Review

Taylor , the founder of scientific management who died 100 years ago. The Future of Operations. Michael Power of the London School of Economics describes the resulting explosion of bureaucracy as “the risk management of everything.” I signed some documents and had a new bank account. Insight Center.

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How to Make Agile Work for the C-Suite

Harvard Business Review

Many companies are attempting a radical — and often rapid — shift from hierarchical structures to more agile environments, in order to operate at the speed required by today’s competitive marketplace. Self-managed teams with limited hierarchy and bureaucracy are explicit features of such organizational models.