Category: Assessment

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Navigating Office Politics: When Real is Fake

“War is hell” said William T. Sherman – and most likely right before he burned down Atlanta (image right) on his famous “march to the sea” during the United States Civil War.

Office politics are a close second, particularly in the types of workplaces that either tacitly permit them or promote them.

In those atmospheres – not unlike some of the world’s cultures – to operate effectively you have to be quasi schizophrenic; keep separated what you think and believe, and what you say you think and believe.… Read the rest

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How Does Backward Design for People Stuff Make Leading Edge Sense?

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of th...
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Yankee baseball Hall of Famer  Yogi Berra (king of malapropisms but no relation to Abe Lincoln on the right) once said “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

The same is true of most of the organizational stuff that you do that touches people in companies; figure out where you want to end up, and work backwards.… Read the rest

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[Life Back West] January 2011 – “Most Likely to Succeed?”

David Brailer does not have  a background that causes you automatically to pick him as most likely to succeed.

And that’s why his success story is interesting for me as an executive coach, and why it holds at least two insights helpful for you.

Brailer grew up in the coal mining town of Kingwood, West Virginia; his father was a coal miner and later a maintenance supervisor, and his mother a surgical nurse.… Read the rest

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Lessons from Great CEOs: How to (Every So Often) Escape the Bubble at the Top

bubble of beer on a bottle
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As sure as night follows day, a “bubble” envelops CEOs and other senior leaders once an organization starts to grow beyond 10 or 15 people. It’s the nature of having a leadership position, the number of people in an organization, and the fact that humans operate in certain predictable ways.

While it’s a bubble that can provide some needed buffer, it’s also a bubble that disables.… Read the rest

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Talent Wars: The “A” Player Hoax

We love easy solutions: take a pill and lose weight; go to the right schools and become a zillionaire; hire the right “A” player new talent while clearing out the “C” deadwood and make your business a great success.

But life (mostly) is not that way. As Ronald Reagan said, “It’s simple, but not simplistic.”

And here’s the hoax – the canard; the idea that if you just hire those “A Players” – people like the Legion of Super Heroes (pictured right)  – the folks in the top 10% of their roles – and “release” the untrainable B and C players to their future career path you’ll have stocked the right talent to have your company become a success.… Read the rest

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The Job Market: Quickening Thaw or Just a Hot Flash?

Image by bgottsab via Flickr

The job market – something I survey as unconsciously as most people breath air as part of my work  –  seems to be telling us something this first week of the Gregorian new year.

But what it is?

For a large part of the US population the Great Recession is like a parallel universe; heard about, but not part of anyone’s day-to-day existence.… Read the rest