Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
My doctor Michael Sdao practices what he terms “evidence-based” medicine: he puts his faith primarily in approaches and procedures that have been validated by substantiated research. While it’s not necessarily the most daring of approaches, in the main the outcomes (knock on wood) have been pretty good.
Organizations, on the other hand, are pretty hit and miss as it pertains to using human capital systems and processes that have been validated by evidence based research.… Read the rest
As my colleague Margaret O’Hanlon has blogged at the Compensation Cafe, merit budgets in 2009 are tiny: the upshot is that most employees won’t see a salary increase. At a time of 10.2% national unemployment, the goods news for the folks who have them is that they have a job – the bad news is they’ll see no compensation reward for hard work and performance this past year.… Read the rest
As a senior at Tigard High School, the Prom Queen was selected by a canned food competition between the three high school classes. The goal was to incent students to both show school spirit and bring in canned foods for people who were less fortunate and needed the food to eat to live.
Both competitive and adventuresome sorts, my class’ winning solution was to tin-cup class members for cash, and then ditch school to go buy canned foods at discount retailers that sold marred (but perfectly eatable) canned goods at a discount.… Read the rest
Where communications abilities takes us a host of other trends and patterns follow.
For better or worse it’s given us a world where you can be tethered to work by iPhone or computer, and share information via short text bursts and immediate access And as this week’s Wall Street Journal chronicles in “Why E-Mail No Longer Rules“, changes in the nature of communication have changed how we fundamentally think of a host of related relationships – such as jobs.… Read the rest
Stealth mode is mounting a comeback. It disappeared for awhile in the aftermath of the dot com crash but there are signs of its return, even with a swagger in things like Craigslist job advertisements (“We’re a hot new start-up, still in stealth mode, operating quietly . . .” and hubris too (“We always get a tremendous response to these postings.”)… Read the rest
Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg offers some gems of advice on her work/life philosophy in the September 23, 2009 issue of Fortune to people in general and women in specific.
Sandberg writes “But after watching talented woman after talented woman pass up opportunities, I realized that too many women make the mistake of leaving before they leave. Here is what is happens: An ambitious, successful woman starts considering having children.… Read the rest