Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Start-ups are a lot like some relationships; great when when you first meet and date, perhaps a little bumpy and not-so-hot as you spend more time, grow, and start wanting different things from the relationship.
The fact of the matter is that the road is littered with co-founders or co-founding teams that needed to split apart – some stay, some leave – in order for the start-up to grow.… Read the rest
There was a 1960’s coming of age movie about four Midwestern guys titled “Where the Boys Are.” Funny and clever for its time, it was also laden with stereotypical models of life – including the roles of women and men – of that era.
If you squint (“Really hard,” some of my colleagues would suggest) there is a different plot playing out in the corporate world in the United States today.… Read the rest
Many managers dread hiring people.
It’s a dirty little secret, and one of the things that causes people to realize that they are not cut out for management.
There are things you can do to help avoid that dread; they aren’t elaborate, and with a little practice you can make the hiring process easier (dare I say “enjoyable”), hopefully less painful, and more reliable.… Read the rest
North Americans (OK, maybe just those of us who are Yankees) love simple solutions, especially to complex problems.
We want a pill to cure obesity (instead of a change in diet, lifestyle, better sleep, and appropriate physical activity) and student testing to cure educational ills (in lieu of better teacher training and development, better resourcing, smaller class size, and greater parental involvement).… Read the rest
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
There are a number of reasons to avoid the temptation of a people management approach like “Tograding” – where its often simplistic application is to divide the world of your employees into “A,” “B,” and “C” players – and where the 65% of employees who are “C” players are released and managed out. (Fault me but when someone says an approach is “the silver bullet” I cringe.… Read the rest