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Category Archives: Management
The Art of Thinking Clearly
Rolf Dobelli has published a great book that will help you think more clearly about life, work. government — just about everything. The Art of Thinking Clearly is a collection of short three-page chapters describing 99 different cognitive biases that we humans suffer … Continue reading
Clayton Christensen Demolishes Jill Lepore’s Critique of Disruptive Innovation
Last week, the New Yorker published Harvard historian Jill Lepore’s sharply worded critique of both Clayton Christensen and his theory of disruptive innovation. Some journalists piled on, further deriding “disruption zealots” and their leader, while others jumped to Christensen’s defense. Meanwhile, Drake Bennet at Business Week … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, Management
Tagged Clayton Christensen, Disruptive innovation, Jill Lepore
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Infographic: Top 15 Large Pharma Companies by Market Cap
Interesting chart of the top 15 large pharma & biotech firms ranked by market capitalization. Note the resemblance to a power-law distribution (or exponential, really). If business outcomes are distributed like this, why would employee performance be normally distributed? Data from … Continue reading
Posted in Management
Tagged employee performance, market capitalization, Pharmaceutical industry
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Peter Drucker on Outsourcing and Information Technology
I stumbled on a 2004 interview of Peter Drucker, one of the giants of management consulting and education. Drucker was famous for coining the term “knowledge worker”, and he was an early proponent of outsourcing (starting decades ago). It’s worth reading the interview in its … Continue reading
Employee Performance Does Not Follow a Bell Curve
Here’s a great post written by Josh Bersin that’s gotten a lot of attention in the past few days: The Myth of the Bell Curve. As I mentioned several weeks ago, more and more evidence shows that employee performance in the … Continue reading
Posted in Fixing Big Pharma Research, Management
Tagged bell curve, Performance management
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Product Cycles in the Pharma Industry and How to “Shorten” Them – Part 1
A few weeks ago I commented on what may be the fundamental limit on a stable Pharmaceutical industry — products have to be on the market for at least as long as it takes to replace them. Cash flow significant … Continue reading
Posted in Fixing Big Pharma Research, Management, Research
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Rigid stack ranking of employee performance and pharmaceutical research is a bad combination
Microsoft’s recent decision to abandon employee stack ranking is just the latest example of the growing skepticism around stack ranking performance management schemes, especially ones that force bottom 5-10% distributions. Sadly, some pharmaceutical firms still use the method. The major arguments against stack … Continue reading
Posted in Fixing Big Pharma Research, Management
Tagged Human resources, Microsoft, MIT, Performance management, stack ranking, Yahoo
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Boston is a Global Financial Center – #7 Actually
Most people think of Boston as a global center for research and teaching, especially in the biomedical sciences. (or perhaps as a center of excellence in American professional sports…). Say “financial center”, however, and the word “regional” comes to mind … Continue reading
Did You Know? 2013 – Technology Impact on Society and Business
Posted in Innovation, Management
Tagged Analytics, Business, Data, iPhone, Research, Technology
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The Mythical Man-Month
I recently read one of the classic books on management, “The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering” by Frederick Brooks. It’s a quick read, and Brook’s observations are just as relevant today as they were when the book was first … Continue reading
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