Mark Swelstad's Management Blog

     Every organization desires to be innovative.  Anyone paying attention to the stock prices of companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon is aware of the value of innovation, and everyone wants to get there.  But a lot of organizations fail, and fail mightily, in their quest to be innovative.  Maybe they're too concerned about the latest quarterly earning report, or maybe they simply don't have the resources to devote to anything not obviously tied to revenue.      In The Innovator's DNA , a great book by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen, the authors rightly point out that innovation must be supported (italics mine) by senior leadership, and that organizations striving to be innovative must be prepared to fail on occasion.  But not every organization has the bandwidth to fail, and not every organization has senior leadership support for innovation, even if they say otherwise .  Let's call these organi...

This blog is an avenue for me to document and share some of the management and leadership ideas, good and bad, that I've had over the last several years.  Almost all of these ideas at least in part come from some combination of learning acquired via book, classroom, podcast, and experience.  I am not claiming to be an expert on anything, I am just sharing what has worked for me, and sometimes what hasn't.  I welcome constructive feedback.  Comments are moderated only to prevent spam.  A bit of my background: I have worked as an IT manager for about 7 years; prior to that I was a software developer, all of this at the same company.  Prior to that I worked in a series of management jobs for about ten years out of college that were getting me nowhere.  In 2004, after losing a job, I went back to (gasp) college, got an IT degree and reinvented myself as an IT professional.  Since that time I've learned an enormous amount and I hope that some of what...