Cerebyte Inc. • Leverage Your Best to Transform the Rest

Wisdom Library

New Articles
Managing the Enterprise
Operational Excellence
Cerebyte Methodology
Human Resources/Training
Information Technology
Underlying Research

New Articles and Videos (click titles to open PDF document)

Change Management - Craft or Science
Is change management more of a craft beholding to artists or a repeatable methodology driven by science? This article makes the argument that recent breakthroughs in four areas of science have transformed change management into a highly systematic and predictable process.
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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
In this 11 minute video, Daniel Pink (author of The Tipping Point and Outliers) discusses recent discoveries in the science behind our motivations. He challenges the common belief that if you reward a particular behavior then you will encourage it and if you punish a particular behavior then you will discourage it. It turns out this approach only works in a narrow set of situations.

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A Scientific Model of Grassroots O.D.
The biggest challenge for most Organizational Development cultural change initiatives is to get large numbers of people to quickly and completely embrace a desired change. Grassroots O.D. engages many people quickly while still supporting executive initiatives. By integrating research on positive deviance, fair process, neuroscience and mass customization into a practical methodology, a grassroots approach to O.D. can change organizations� cultures faster, more predictably and more completely than was previously thought possible.
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Organizational Transformation: A New Application of Persuasive Technology
Changing an organization can be incredibly difficult because many people must change their beliefs, values, and actions quickly and completely for an organizational transformation to occur and sustain. These types of changes are, of course, exactly what persuasive technologies are designed to drive. This article provides a proven method for applying persuasive technology to drive organizational transformation.
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Managing the Enterprise (click titles to open PDF document)

Performance Improvement in the Far Flung Enterprise
Grow revenues! Grow profits! Execute better! Is there anything more important for most organizations? This article presents a unique approach to improving performance in far-flung enterprises - i.e., geographically dispersed chain and chain-like organizations. This approach has already produced spectacular gains in both sales and profits.
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Positive Deviants Rule
Is continuous innovation important to your organization? This article presents a methodology for identifying and leveraging your Positive Deviants as a simple, readily available means of continuous, effective innovation which can be used by virtually any organization.
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Strategy to Action in 6 Days
The key to sustained performance improvement in large, geographically dispersed organizations is quick, effective implementation of critical strategic initiatives. This article presents an approach to implementing strategic initiatives that enables an organization to go from strategy articulation to field action in only a few days - while drastically reducing implementation time!
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Operational Excellence (click titles to open PDF document)

Developing Devoted Customers
Businesses need devoted customers. This article examines why some managers in chains are consistently successful at developing environments that create devoted customers, how you can learn their 'secret sauce' and how you get all your personnel to act like the top performers.
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Optimizing Alliance Management
Are some of your alliance managers consistently and systematically more effective than others? This article examines the attitudes and behaviors of top performing alliance managers. More specifically, it examines the actual behaviors that promote highly positive, mutually beneficial win-win relationships.
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Optimizing Franchise Performance
Are you, the franchisor, satisfied with the performance of all your franchisees? If you're like most franchisors, your response to this question is a resounding "No!" This article presents an approach for optimizing franchise performance by increasing the franchisee's ability to operate successfully. More specifically, it discusses the crucial role of the franchisor's 'system' in both promoting franchise sales and franchisee success.
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Cerebyte Methodology (click titles to open PDF document)

Part 1: Discovering the Secret Sauce
Do some of your people consistently and systematically outperform others? Is there financial or strategic value in raising the performance of the many to the level of the few? If you answered "yes" to these questions, then gathering and using the 'secret sauce' of these top performers, these "Positive Deviants," will be of considerable value to you.
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Part 2: 8 Minutes to Performance Improvement
Once you have the experts' secret sauce, what are you going to do with it? How about using it to get an immediate performance improvement? Effectively using the secret sauce can produce a significant behavior change and related performance improvement in as little as 8 minutes.
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Part 3: The Performance Improvement Multiplier
Are you satisfied with your organization's performance? Would you like to outperform your competition everyday, indefinitely? If you're like most of us, you want to continuously improve your performance and outperform your competition everyday, indefinitely. This article presents a system for long-term, sustainable improvements that constantly multiply your performance and financial gains.
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Human Resources/Training (click titles to open PDF document)

Rediscovering the Corporate Soul
Soulful organizations consistently outperform soulless organizations. This article examines the nature of the corporate 'soul', how you can identify it in your company, and how you can leverage it throughout your organization to significantly enhance bottom line results.
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Lessons Learned
Teaching employees new skills is one thing. Getting them to apply what they have learned is quite another. With some studies suggesting that just 10% to 40% of training is ever used on the job, it is clear that a big chunk of the money spent on staff development is going down the drain. This article discusses the follow-up techniques that have been found most effective at creating actual change in the workplace.
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Optimizing Knowledge Transfer
Is the success of your organization dependent on the efficient transfer and use of knowledge? If your people need specific skills and knowledge to effectively perform their functions, you are dependent on effective knowledge transfer. In most organizations, effective utilization of knowledge increases productivity, creates competitive advantage and, ultimately, improves profits. This article examines the knowledge transfer challenge and presents a new, more effective method for transferring critical knowledge.
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Saving Retiring Knowledge Workers' Secret Sauce
As the baby boom generation approaches retirement, many organizations are recognizing an impending knowledge crisis. Much of the critical expertise of their most experienced workers will soon be leaving and replacing it will be difficult if not impossible! This article presents a method for protecting an organization against the potential loss of retiring knowledge worker (RKW) knowledge.
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Information Technology (click titles to open PDF document)

A Behavioral Approach to Knowledge Management
Why have so few knowledge management (KM) systems met or exceeded expectations? Simply put, customers of KM systems are not getting what they want, need or were promised. This article examines the role of KM systems in behavioral change. It presents an analysis of the 'warehouse' model underlying most KM systems today, and contrasts that model with a more 'customer-focused' design that focuses on driving more productive behaviors.
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A Humanistic Knowledge Technology
Why haven't portals, search engines, personnel profilers and document management systems been more successful? Primarily because knowledge management is first and foremost a human activity, and these technologies are not about people. This article presents an alternative approach; one that places people at the center by emulating the human coaching experience.
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Developing Devoted IT Customers
Most non-IT people dislike the IT department. At best, IT is seen as a necessary evil. Why is IT perceived this way? Primarily because IT is a customer service organization that doesn't like its customers. In fact, most IT people see themselves as technical experts, not as service providers. This article explores the relationship between IT and its customers, and provides an alternative approach that places customer service at the core of that relationship.
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Underlying Research (click titles to open PDF document)

The Neuroscience of Leadership
Success in the competitive business environment of today is not possible without changing the day-to-day behavior of people throughout a company. But changing behavior is hard, even for individuals. During the last two decades, scientists have gained a new, far more accurate view of human nature and behavior change. The implications of this new research are particularly relevant for organizational leaders. It is now clear that human behavior in the workplace does not work the way many executives think it does.
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Fair Process: Managing the Knowledge Economy
It is possible for top executives to create processes that help keep managers honest and also help build employees trust. In this HBR article, the authors find that employees will commit to a managers decision even one they disagree with if they believe that the process the manager used to make the decision was fair. They go on to show how fair process is the key to new ideas and successful initiatives.
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The Expert Mind
Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well. In this Scientific American article, the authors show that the preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge.
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Your Company's Secret Change Agents
Some business problems employees working at half their potential, endlessly escalating health care costs, conflicts between departments never seem to get fixed. In this HBR article, the authors assert that identifying the positive deviants in the organization and bringing their isolated success strategies into the mainstream is the key to bridging the gap between what is happening and what is possible.
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It's all about achieving high performance!