MBA 2004

Geert Hofstede(1991) seminal work on cultures and organizations

Dr. Geert Hofstede conducted perhaps the most comprehensive study of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. From 1967 to 1973, while working at IBM as a psychologist, Hofstede collected and analyzed data from over 100,000 individuals from 50 countries and 3 regions. Subsequent studies validating the earlier results have included commercial airline pilots and students in 23 countries, civil service managers in 14 counties, 'up-market' consumers in 15 countries and 'elites' in 19 countries.
From the initial results, and later additions, Geert Hofstede developed a model that identifies four primary Dimensions to assist in differentiating cultures: Power Distance - PDI, Individualism - IDV, Masculinity - MAS, and Uncertainty Avoidance.
Geert Hofstede added a fifth Dimension after conducting an additional international study with a survey instrument developed with Chinese employees and managers. That Dimension, based on Confucian dynamism, is Long-Term Orientation - LTO and was applied to 23 countries. These five Hofstede Dimensions can also be found to correlate with other country, cultural, and religious paradigms.

A finite player is trained not only to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past... Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised. If surprise is no longer possible, then all play ceases. Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue. Surprise in infinite play is the triumph of the future over the past. Since infinite players do not regard the past as having an outcome, they have no way of knowing what has been begun there. With each surprise, the past reveals a new beginning in itself. Inasmuch as the future is always surprising, the past is always changing... The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed by it, for surprise does not alter some abstract past, but one's own personal past.

J.P. Carse 'Finite and Infinite Games'

"The finite play for life is serious; the infinite play of life is joyous."

"It is laughter with others with whom we have discovered that the end we thought we were coming to has unexpectedly opened. We laugh not at what has surprisingly come to be impossible for others, but over what has surprisingly come to be possible with others."

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
WB Yeats - The Second Coming

Jack Welch four essential traits of leadership
(each one starting with an E, a nice coincidence). One, successful
leaders have tons of positive energy. They can go go go; they love
action and relish change. Two, they have the ability to energize
others--they love people and can inspire them to move mountains
when they have to. Three, they have edge, the courage to make
tough yes-or-no decisions--no maybes. And finally, they can
execute. They get the job done.

ps.....not forgetting passion and strong ethics.....