Robin Stuart-Kotze

Robin Stuart-Kotze (born May 17, 1939) is an eminent Canadian author, researcher and developer of behavioural diagnostics who lives and works with his wife Lorna in County Cork, Ireland. He has authored or co-authored nine books. Several of them are translated into a variety of languages, among them Chinese, Russian, and Korean. With his company Behavioural Science Systems he has developed a range of behavioural diagnostics.

Biography

Robin Stuart-Kotze, a Canadian, was born May 17, 1939 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was educated at schools in South Africa and Canada. He has a BA (honours economics) from Bishop’s University, an MBA from Queen’s University, and a PhD in organizational psychology from The University of Warwick, UK.

He was commissioned in the Canadian Grenadier Guards in 1962 and transferred to the Canadian Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) 3rd Battalion, serving from 1963 to 1966.

His managerial career was centred in financial services. He was President of BGH Central Atlantic, pension fund managers, and Senior Vice-President of Central Capital Corporation, responsible for investment management and merchant banking. His other senior corporate roles include Director of Development of the Regina-Hill Group, and Director of the Centre for Management Development at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

During his academic career he has been a Professor or Visiting Professor in Canada at Saint Mary’s, Acadia and Memorial universities, and in Britain at Aston, Warwick and Oxford universities. He has taught extensively in the areas of organizational behaviour and corporate strategy at MBA and Executive MBA level, and has been an advisor and examiner at the doctoral level.

His career in leadership behaviour research and working with senior executives and their organizations has been with Behavioural Science Systems (BSS), which he founded in 1972. BSS has a clear mission and focus:

To apply a scientific approach to observing, describing, measuring and understanding the behaviours that sustain and move organisations forward, as well as the behaviours that impede growth and success.

Over the past thirty years BSS’s clients have included such organisations as General Motors, Westinghouse, Exxon, the US Air Force, the Canadian Government, Xerox, British Leyland, Granada, Northern Telecom, Bell Northern Research, Coopers & Lybrand, Price Waterhouse, Burmah-Castrol, Rothmans International, Johnson & Johnson, Nova Corp, Barclays Bank, Marconi, the Boston Consulting Group, P&O, British Petroleum, BT, Ford, Oracle, HSBC, and a host of other firms around the globe.

He has also had a career as a management author and has published a number of books and articles. He is the author or co-author of

• Money Management (McGraw-Hill) (with W.J. Reddin),
• Effective Situational Diagnosis (MEL) ( with W.J. Reddin),
• Managerial Achievement (Reston) (with Dr. Rick Roskin),
• Introduction to Organisational Behaviour (Reston),
• Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Atlantic Canada (ACOA),
• Principles of Management – now in its 8th edition – (Pearson) (with Stephen P. Robbins),
• Fundamentals of Management – in its 4th edition – (Pearson) (with Stephen P. Robbins),
• Performance: The Secrets of Successful Behaviour (Pearson),
• Who Are Your Best People? How to find, measure and manage your top talent (Pearson) (with Chris Dunn).

Robin has retired from organizational life and focuses his time and energy on scientific research into the behaviour of people at work. His research confirms findings that a small number of things that people do as they manage their jobs (behaviours) generate 80+% of their results and the diagnostics he has developed, and continues to develop, identify what those specific actions are. His work enables individuals and organizations to identify clearly and specifically what they are doing currently to generate results, what they are doing that hinders the achievement of results, and what they need to do differently for optimal results.

Further reading

• Drucker, Peter F., The Practice of Management, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. (1954).
• Drucker, Peter F., The Effective Executive, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. (1967).
• Drucker, Peter F., Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New Work: Harper & Row,(1976).
• Maslow, Abraham H., Motivation and Personality, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., (1970).
• Reddin, W.J., Managerial Effectiveness and Style: Individual or Situation  :PhD thesis (1983)