Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
The myth is that startups mostly exist in places like San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Austin, Portland and Boulder, Boston or New York City.
That part is no myth; startups up do exist in those places.
But there is another startup in the town where you live. In fact, it’s even got your name on the door.
It’s the startup called you.… Read the rest
Journalist (and Twitter friend) Kara Swisher noted regarding the Carol Bartz debacle that “there really is no good time to fire someone.”
I think Kara’s work is great, and I’d suggest otherwise.
There are good times to fire people.
Lord knows that as someone who worked as a corporate HR exec during the height of the restructuring boom in the 80’s and 90’s I’ve fired more people than I can count.… Read the rest
Character counts – at least that’s what most of us are told as kids. But does it really?
What if – as the headline of this week’s New York Times Magazine blared – The Secret to Success is Failure, and not your GPA or even the schools you attended but rather your CPA – character personality average – that predicts your path forward?… Read the rest
Life as a corporate alpha male – or alpha female – can be tough.
Rivals lurk everywhere; rivals that need to be dominated and subdued. Impatience, aggression and anger for some alphas is only a millisecond away – a tough price for the “plays well with others” performance rating and getting people to spend time with you at a family picnic.… Read the rest
Who knew that hiring realities and a trip to my home state of Oregon would intersect.
But they did.
You know the deal. You’ve got a candidate or two from inside the firm to consider and candidates from outside that are in the vetting / interview hopper for the job.
You end up – surprise surprise – hiring the outsider. Only later do you come across the statistic from the Center for Creative Leadership that approximately 66% of senior execs hired from the outside fail within 18 months and that the overall failure rate for external hires within 3 years is 40%.… Read the rest
Only the hopeful and the perhaps the ignorant confuse voluntary associations with work groups.
Yet the fact of the matter is that there are elements from the world of voluntary relationships that can help more than just a few work groups perform better and even have a little more fun.
These opportunities for shared lessons came to mind with the fifth version last month of what’s become an annual pilgrimage up to San Francisco Recreation & Park’s Camp Mather near the Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valleys in the California Sierras.… Read the rest