Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
I bumped into a neighbor I’ll call “Sue” on the 4th of July who had a problem that many encounter at some point in their career; a bullying boss.
Sue is gutsy, and had tried several “talk it outs” with her boss to figure out a way to work better together and was getting nowhere. The boss was relatively nice in public and a monster in private.… Read the rest
They are the four most dreaded words to hear when you need help: “It’s not my job.”
Guess what? It just might be your job.
Maybe it’s the intersection of speaking this past weekend to 12 bright women enrolled in my colleague and friend Stacy Blake-Beard’s leadership and gender B-school class at Mills College or an upcoming call with Shereef Bishay (TedSF: Applying Open Source Principles to the Work Place here) but one thought came to mind when I heard those words.… Read the rest
Face it, we all do it:
“We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.” – Herb Kelleher, former CEO and founder of Southwest Airlines.
The email from the prospective applicant family asked my thoughts regarding my son’s grade school.
It could have just as easily been about a place to work or somebody referencing an employee.
It brought to mind a simple question.
When do you shift from “highly recommend” to a more nuanced “recommend with reservations?”
Just as the most qualified candidate may not be the best candidate for a job (“He had lots of great skills and experiences.… Read the rest
It happens.
The new senior hire (formerly called a senior suit in the days when the males who mostly occupied those roles actually wore matching jackets and pants) is keen to make their mark at the new place so they make changes. Often big ones.
Sometimes those changes work, and sometimes they bomb.
New CEO Marissa Meyer has clearly put her mark on a number of shifts at Yahoo in the five weeks she’s been on board changing some obvious practices: free food (a la Google, where she formerly worked) at many of Yahoo’s locations, instituting weekly check-in meetings (called FYI in Yahoo-speak), a reinvigorated and more rigorous hiring process, and engaging in greater dialogue and access with programmers than her predecessors. … Read the rest