Flying home from Seattle, where I'd just spent an invigorating 2 days facilitating a study group of veterinary practice owners discussing things like Leadership, Management Practices, and Finance; I read through the March 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review.  There were 3 great articles on people and cluture in organizations.  When I use the phrase "great", I mean thought-provoking, not necessarily that I take the articles as gospel.  I won't go into my usual lengthly description of each article (thank goodness) but will say that they're each worth reading.  Of particular interest to leaders of organizations should be the article titled "Crisis at the Summit", describing "Summit Syndrome" which is an afflication that can happen to high achievers.  Most folks that achieve at high levels in business probably experience some aspects of this syndrome.  When it happens in full-fledged fashion to the primary owner and/or leader of the business, watch out!

 

I'll also mention the table on page 117, on the article on "Maximizing Your Return on People".  While I'm either not smart enough, or just recovering from jargon addiction/poisoning, to use the phrase "Human Capital", I think that the table does a nice job of creating some sort of scorecard that we can use in our organizations to enable people to do good things.  Check it out and see what you think.

 

Oh, and the cartoons on pp. 90 & 91 ain't bad either!