Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
The problem from the client was common.
His boss had agreed to something the CEO had asked to be done, and now it was being passed along to him to execute.
The problem was that the idea was flawed – “a turd on the table” as a former colleague of mine might have said – and his boss had already committed to it.… Read the rest
Palm, the maker of mobile products, is losing talent.
Tech journalist Kara Swisher has commented that Palm is a company with nine lives. This, by my count, is number ten.
Michael Abbott, SVP of Software, and Caitlin Spaan, VP of Carrier Marketing, have both left Palm. Abbott landed at Twitter. SEC filings indicate that CFO Doug Jeffries and Global Operations Senior Vice President Jeff Devine both were paid $250K bonuses and provided stock options as part of a formal retention plan (bad news when a company’s CFO has to be paid more to stay).There’s … Read the rest
Almost every exec and manager hires people – even in the flat organizations common today. Yet few do it well, and many put it down low on their list of favorite things to do.
It doesn’t have to be that way, and there are four simple steps you can take to make the hiring process easier, go smoother, and make better hires.… Read the rest
I recently individually interviewed 10 biotech CEOs and 10 biotech venture capitalists as part of the data collection portion of an executive coaching engagement. It wasn’t the subject of the interview – which was to collect feedback data regarding my coaching client – but everyone to a person brought up the subject of venture capital and biotech.
Everyone talked about the model of investment and development that’s been in existence since Genentech (1976) and Amgen (1980) were founded.… Read the rest
Writer, recruiter, and thinker Martin Burns recently tweeted, “Amazing how ineptly so many companies – some of them “great” – still handle the job candidate. This will absolutely bite you in the keister.”
The next day business / biotech exec Mike Hart called attention to venture capitalist and managing director of the firm Foundry Group Brad Feld’s request to would-be investments: “If you are interested in talking to me about a potential investment, please just tweet it. … Read the rest
Forget drugs, embezzlement, investment banking, or racketeering. The real answer to how to get paid well can be found in last Sunday’s New York Times.
On a conceptual basis you get paid well when there is a high market price paid for your work. Part supply and demand, part value equation (cost/effectiveness = value ), pay in part is what you do, how well you do, and who you do it with.… Read the rest