In her new book, Don’t Bring it to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success, Sylvia explores what happens when patterns originally created to cope with family conflicts are unleashed in the workplace.

As she explains, patterns from childhood translate into characters familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an office. That’s the guy on your team who never stops complaining. The manager who steamrolls his ideas and never listens to others. The co-worker in the next cubicle you can hear on the phone all day, spreading gossip and rumors. The Board member who always challenges yet never adds anything useful.

But start to understand how past family life and work behaviors connect and you’ll know where performance problems originate and conflict starts.

In this week’s Working Week, Wayne finds out from John Man, author of Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan, how he did this and what lessons he can teach us about the nature of leadership.

First and foremost, John says, we need to forget the myth that Genghis Khan was nothing more than a murderous tyrant who got his way through sheer terror. In fact Khan was a leader of exceptional vision and modernity and arguably the greatest leader the world has ever seen.

What made Genghis Khan so great was partly an overwhelming sense of destiny, a belief in his own “divine” purpose that meant his ego never got in the way of his mission. But more than this, he listened to advice, was open to criticism from both family and associates and wasn’t blinded by ideology.

Pragmatic rather than dogmatic, he used talent wherever he found it and promoted on merit – some of his key lieutenants were Chinese or Muslim – and was able to look beyond conquest to the idea of government. He also understood his own limitations, notably that Mongolians had no written language – so he imported one.

Of course, nobody is arguing that someone who wrought such devastation is a role model, but his ability to galvanize those around him, execute a clear strategy and make the best use of the resources on offer, he certainly has plenty of lessons to offer today’s hard-pressed executives.

Over the years Peter has worked with thousands of individuals and business leaders seeking personal and professional meaning in their lives. His research into human consciousness and the subtle energies of plants and homeopathic remedies has been published globally.

As Pauline explains, the model we have followed for business for the past 200 or so years has predominantly been a masculine one. Despite the ever-changing nature of work, men’s roles in the generation of wealth and prosperity and in how decisions are made have changed very little.

For women, however, there has been a massive shift in the past 60 years. And while working patterns have changed the way women are valued and perceived, business has not always made the best of what is truly “feminine”. Traits perceived as “feminine” (ones that tend to use the right side of the brain) – altruistic, consensual, people-oriented, emotionally engaged, open, co-operative and so on – have often been seen as “softer” or deemed less valuable than the “hard” elements of commerce, profit and loss.

With the effects of this aggressive, risk-taking, masculine mind-set now all-too obvious, Pauline argues that the recession gives us a chance to promote more consensual ways of working as a way to help us get us out of the mess we have got ourselves into. If we are going to manage our way to survival, gender communication and collaboration are what counts, and co-operation (rather than competition) is going to be essential.

Dr Datta is Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD and the faculty director of elab@INSEAD, a center of excellence in the digital economy. He is also the co-author, with Matthew Fraser, of the evocatively-titled new book Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom. The title, if you were wondering, was inspired by a Facebook feature which lets you throw virtual objects at your friends.

Social networking is a global phenomenon that is no longer just a gimmick for teenagers. And just as online social interaction has become an indispensible part of daily life for millions of people, so it is inspiring new ways of doing business as well as different ways of interacting with employees.

As Dr Datta tells Wayne, all this is already starting to have far-reaching consequences that none of us can afford to ignore.

Since many of those responsible for the financial disaster have MBAs from top business schools, what does that say about top business schools? Are the teaching the right things or does the whole basis of the modern MBA need to be re-examined?

As Professor Starkey points out, it certainly appears to be the case that the MBA is rather one-dimensional. Is putting economics at the heart of the MBA is such a good idea when a sense of history and learning from the past seems to be so blatantly missing? And likewise, we ought to ask why those much-vaunted MBA case studies failed to raise any alarm bells about the unfolding financial melt-down?

Finally, what about globalisation? How can the MBA respond to the shift Eastwards of economic power and influence and how can it respond to entirely new ways of thinking about business management?

They discuss the role social networks will play in our careers in future, how it impacts our reputation and how the vast majority of successful companies around the world today are working collaboratively.

Penny also argues that social media will also allow companies to transform their business processes and cut costs, bringing about profound changes to supplier networks and the way that we all work.

As Robert points out, in the 1950s, the car industry epitomised what was good about US business. Now they epitomises everything that has gone wrong, with a loss of leadership, innovation and direction and CEOs who he recently described as colossally overpaid, professionally incompetent and hugely conceited.

But is this a failure of individual leadership or a systemic problem? And what – if anything – can be done to save this iconic part of U.S. history?

While stationed in Germany in the early post-World War II years, Hal Bolton was profoundly affected by devastation left in the wake of war. Subsequently he forged a successful business career and travelled to many parts of the world advocating nonviolent solutions to conflicts.

In his book < href="http://dragonsteeth.net/" target="_new">The Dragon’s Teeth, Hal examines the pervading influence of war myths in the business world. He argues that many companies like to portray themselves as embattled communities, caught in an endless war of cutthroat competition to bolster the bottom line.

As Hal tells Wayne, this “business-as-war-game” myth which views competitors as the enemy means that any strategy that helps “our” team win is acceptable. Then there’s the “entitlement myth”, in which maximizing self-interest is the whole game. There’s the “corporate ladder” myth, in which getting ahead is what counts. And there’s the “management myth” which fosters the idea that management’s duty is to maximize self- interest.

All of these lead to the big one –the “corporate myth” - in which corporate interests take priority over human- scale considerations. This manifests itself in the violence evidenced in outsourcing, layoffs, loss of health benefits and family leave, frozen wages, cutthroat competition among managers and CEOs, buyouts, closures, megamergers - even child sweatshop labor – all of which has plummeted society to a nadir of confidence.

But changing these myths that have allowed war to ride roughshod over society for too long by changing awareness in the workplace will ripple out to society at large as workers and management seek ways to build profit and peace, individuals and corporations intent upon serving society rather than exploiting it.

Hal Bolton was manufacturing supervisor and CEO of Dahlstrom Manufacturing Company, a multinational corporation, for fifteen years, Later, as a consultant in organizational transformation and process improvement, he guided transformative processes in companies and multinationals, communities, educational institutions, and not-for-profit organizations.

He also spent fourteen years as management cochairman of the Jamestown Area Labor Management Committee, creator of the prototype for community labor-management organizations in the United States and abroad.

Over the years Peter has worked with thousands of individuals and business leaders seeking personal and professional meaning in their lives. His research into human consciousness and the subtle energies of plants and homeopathic remedies has been published globally.

They discuss job-hunting strategies for the downturn and explore the future of education and how on-line technologies are transforming the way we learn.

Dr Wilen-Daugenti has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University and adjunct professor for MBA programs for San Francisco Bay Area universities. She was awarded the San Francisco Women of the Year award in 2002 for her outreach and support for women in business and technology in the Bay Area.

The word which pops up frequently here is “relationships” – their quality, longevity and the trust they engender. And in bad times, relationships gets tested more and any flaws will be quickly exposed.

They also explore how consultants make assignments work, what makes a good consultant and the differences between working in the public and the private sector.

At the heart of this approach is the belief that workers will try harder and be more enthusiastic about achieving workplace goals if they can obtain instant rewards for their efforts.

As Brooks explains, this somewhat unconventional approach to reward and motivation is actually based on sound behavioural research - any human activity that is positively reinforced will be repeated.

His approach to employee motivation in the workplace involves four major themes: immediate recognition, relevant incentive rewards, accountability and the behavior-changing power of intermittent positive reinforcement. It’s also based on money, not merchandise – because money equals choice and can also be broken into small amounts.

It’s certainly a novel approach, but with a third of incentive programmes actually decreasing performance, it’s one that certainly shouldn’t be ignored

Employee ownership can be a tough proposition. But if you have really want to empower employees and push decision-making down to the grass roots, creating a decentralized, network-based company that values input from everyone, it is a model that can deliver tremendous benefits.

As Mary Ann explains, the employee involvement that characterizes companies with broad-based ownership tends to result in greater transparency and open-book management. And the knowledge that every individual can influence the direction of the company also produces a different dynamic, often with very high energy levels.

To disseminate the message about employee ownership, a new project has been launched by the Foundation for Enterprise Development, the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education and the Foundation for Enterprise Development and the Employee Ownership Foundation.

Between them, these institutions have created of a Curriculum Library on Employee Ownership which represents the largest collection of university teaching materials on employee ownership—including such areas as broad-based equity compensation and shared capitalism. The library is at
CasePlace.org.

To explore the impact and role of generations in the workplace, Wayne is joined by
Graeme Codrington. With a CV that includes chartered accountancy at KPMG, IT boom entrepreneur, youth worker, consultant, professional musician, futurist, best-selling author and professional speaker, Graeme is a visiting professor at four business schools, as well as one of the founders of futurist consultancy TomorrowToday.

As Graeme explains, it’s too simplistic just to say that they key to understanding generational issues is to say that “people are different”. Instead, you need to look at the different value sets that each generation have developed - often shaped by the context and events which occurred during their childhoods.

This also explains why different generations have such different styles of communication – and find it so hard to co-exist in the same meeting, let alone the same office. When Baby Boomers prefer face-to-face meetings whilst Generation Xers prefer to text or email, it’s little wonder we have communication breakdowns!

Each new generation entering a new lifestage brings this generational valueset with them, and redefines the lifestage they’re entering. All of which has very important implications for how organisations motivate, attract and retain them as staff and business partners.

Which is why Wayne is joined for this week’s Working Week by Jennifer Openshaw, who is CEO of the website Weseed.com, which demystifies the stock market by helping people share what they know and make smart investing decisions based on the collective wisdom of the community.

Jennifer’s mantra, as she explains to Wayne, is to “invest in what you know”, be that what you know through work or through the things you are passionate about or interested in.

And while this might seem like a strange time to be talking about investments, the fact remains that it’s in a company’s best interests to have financially literate staff. As Jennifer points out, people who have financial worries are more stressed and less productive than those who aren’t.

That’s something that UK retail giant Tesco - the largest private-sector employer in Britain - is well aware of. Just this week, it announced that it is distributing financial educational guides to all its 280,000 employees. It will also run a series of hour-long briefings in head offices and distribution centres, where hundreds of staff will be taught how to manage their money better.

A graduate of Stanford Business School, Kathy co-founded Circles in 1997 to address the needs of time-starved professionals and corporations that rely on these professionals as high-value customers or employees. Two things she didn’t learn in school: the “power and importance of good decision making” and the “complexity in managing an organization full of people.”

October was National Work and Family month in the U.S, but as we all know, time seems to be even more at a premium now than it ever has been. Yet time starvation leads to stress and a whole host of other undesirable symptoms, not least of which is that individuals tend to become less productive and more likely to get sick.

For those who still think that work-life balance is nothing to do with employers, Kathy has a simple response. All companies employ people and if they are not able to create an environment that acknowledges that individuals have lives and issues outside of work, the entire company will suffer.

So what practical steps can companies do to help their people mange their lives better? And what role can HR and line managers play in this? Listen on to find out.

He tells Wayne how this impacts the workplace and what the implications are for management thinking.