Category: Performance

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Talent Wars: The “A” Player Hoax

We love easy solutions: take a pill and lose weight; go to the right schools and become a zillionaire; hire the right “A” player new talent while clearing out the “C” deadwood and make your business a great success.

But life (mostly) is not that way. As Ronald Reagan said, “It’s simple, but not simplistic.”

And here’s the hoax – the canard; the idea that if you just hire those “A Players” – people like the Legion of Super Heroes (pictured right)  – the folks in the top 10% of their roles – and “release” the untrainable B and C players to their future career path you’ll have stocked the right talent to have your company become a success.… Read the rest

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Women (and Others) at the Top: the “One-Up / One-Down” Paradox

Image via CrunchBase

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

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Old Rules, New Accountability: When the Hammer Comes Down

Monica Lewinsky, from her government ID photo ...
Image via Wikipedia

It’s not exactly Pink Turns Blue‘s version, but the hammer has came down these last fews month; will things ever be exactly the same?

Consider the following

  • The University of Pittsburgh canned new head football coach Mike Haygood last week, one day after he was arrested on a domestic violence charge. Haygood had recently been hired from his job as head football coach at Miami University and had yet to move into his offices at Pitt.
… Read the rest
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Football Coaches and Outsider CEOs: When the Messiah Isn’t

There are many reasons to love this time of year.

Day (actually daylight) will start to get longer, spring and warmth is not too far around the corner, and it’s also the time of year when the annual churn in US college and professional football teams happens with uncanny predictability.

For those of us who work in “regular” business, the football sports world offers a great analogue for things like leadership, assessment, and succession.… Read the rest

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How-to-Achieve Your New Year Resolutions? Be Like Mahatma

The New Year is here, and many of us in North America will note the start of the year with resolutions, a legacy of being informed by the European side of the immigrant family tree. The Romans gave us January 1st as the marker for the new year, and Pope Gregory promoted it with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar , something adopted by the Western / Christian world in 1582 and used as a loose business default calendar globally.… Read the rest

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Man (or Woman) in the Mirror: When Do You Fire the Boss?

National Football League Hall of Fame star Mik...
Image via Wikipedia

The San Francisco 49ers fired their head coach Mike Singletary yesterday.

I don’t know Singletary, but have followed his career since 1985 when I lived in Chicago for five years (comprising what I refer to as the longest decade of my life) and he played for the Chicago Bears.

Singletary was an undersized, underpowered linebacker who played with lots of smarts and heart, and it’s no coincidence that the Bears won a Super Bowl and were highly competitive with him on board.… Read the rest