Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
When I ran Human Resources for the drug distribution side of McKesson , prying 15 minutes from a distribution operating shift for employee communication basics was like taking bear cubs away from their parents.
Why is this important to you? Because the lessons McKesson supervisors learned should inform the communication practices of anyone who manages people from senior execs to first line supervisors.… Read the rest
Neither Roche Chairman Franz Humer nor CEO Severin Schwan have called me up to ask how I’d handle the talent side of their Genentech acquisition. Perhaps they will, but they’ve also been pretty mum on their plans moving forward for the talent at 1 DNA Way .
As someone who has made their livelihood in the talent assessment business as a coach to managers and teams for over 25 years – and to save Franz and Severin a long distance phone call charge – here are some things I’d be thinking about if I were on point with the talent side of the Genentech project.… Read the rest
Business and organizational observers in San Francisco and its environs will get a first hand view of how smart – or not-so-smart – the buyers of Genentech and Barclays Global Investor’s iShares unit are in getting real value for their acquisitions. [Update: See Kathleen Pender’s good overview column Net Worth from the April 12th San Francisco Chronicle here ]
While the buyers are different, the name of the game is the same: get value equal or greater to your purchase price.… Read the rest
In Roman Catholic theology, limbo is that afterlife condition for those who die without being assigned to hell. For employees in companies waiting for the post-acquisition dust to settle such as Genentech, or for those waiting for part of the organization to be halved off, such as Barclays Global Investors (BGI) with its iShares division, limbo is a pretty good description of what it’s like to be inside the organization.… Read the rest
Eight United States teams – four men’s and four women’s – of sweaty, baggy-shorted collegiate basketball players will be running up and down a wooden court that is 94 feet long and 50 feet wide trying to claim the winner’s trophy in what’s known as basketball’s Final Four over the next few days.
Basketball, more than any other sport, is the ultimate team experience: nothing else comes close in the way five players must play well together and the lessons for business are endless.… Read the rest
With the Roche’s acquisition of Genentech finalized the next obvious set of question surrounds who stays and who goes.
More specifically, does somebody like CEO Art Levinson, arguably the singular driving force since 1995 – albeit playing the point on an executive group that behaves from a distance like a real team – stay?
The quick answer is not likely .… Read the rest