One of the leading international management thinkers, Professor Robert Kaplan, from Harvard Business School, made a visit in Australia in mid September 2010 to talk about the new developments in the field of strategic performance management and Balanced Scorecard.
As it goes, discussing team performance and performance management gives due attention to means and measurements that address staff qualities. This is understandable, as a great part of the overall productivity is attributed to the quality and effort invested by team members into their work. Also, there is a reasonably larger number of team members, than there are team managers and leaders. This assumption provides a healthy premise for investing in research that aims for boosting performance through stimulating staff qualities. Nevertheless, when discussing team efficacy, one cannot and should not overlook the effect team leaders have on the overall performance.
Firm performance can be measured in so many ways and according to so many factors. One of these factors may be gender and the issues linked to it in the business world. The long-discussed problem of women entering the business world and occupying a wide range of positions that are generally thought as masculine, appears to reach now a common level of understanding. Companies are now displaying encouragement for female candidates to apply to vacant positions and the response does not fail to emerge. More and more women now hold important positions in the hierarchy of a company, thus creating confidence for others to follow.
It is interesting to observe different companies striving to reach their destinations. And above interest, this presents a great opportunity to assess other companies and their way of handling issues, thus benefiting from a chance to compare one’s company and strategies with another’s.
Boss or leader? Which of the two do we want to be? Bosses are quite often seen as an unreachable entity in the company, set aside from the team, like some sort of an outside supervisor. Many companies fail to achieve success due to this negative view. A true leader knows how to connect with a team and most importantly, he does not order, he demonstrates by doing it himself.