Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
People want to be successful, which is usually a combination of being effective (doing the right thing) and efficient (doing things well), putting folks down a path to achieving favorable results.
Sometimes – as counterintuitive as it seems – that means doing less, not more.
Optimal performance (think weight training, writing a dissertation, running a business) is a combination of intense work and intermittent breaks.… Read the rest
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
Talent Wars: The “A” PlayerHoax details an HR practice called “tograding.” The approach has some good advice (depthful, behaviorally focused interviews with well trained interviews) mixed with an often simplistic, and unproven application techniques.
Check out this tograding promotional blurb:
CEOs report that “picking the right people” is one of their most serious challenges.… 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
Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg (pictured) does a terrific brief talk at TEDwomen “Why Few Women at the Top” – worth everyone viewing and everybody – not just women – taking note.
It is like my good (female) friend at a leading global investment bank who asked me to help her network with other senior women in financial services in San Francisco when I managed recruiting for Barclays Global Investors (at the time the world’s largest money manager – it’s now owned by BlackRock).… Read the rest