Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Glenn Murphy resigned his CEO role with Gap, Inc. effective February 1, 2015.
While I don’t know Murphy, I do know one thing about his 8-year stint at the Gap: Murphy left “fingerprints.”
Murphy was brought at a time when Gap was generally described as “adrift” and “without focus.” While financial results were mixed during his tenure – retail is a tough place for anyone to perform well – the stock price doubled during his time holding the stick.… Read the rest
There are “secrets” in the executive search trade that anyone who hopes to be headhunted (or hire a headhunter to fill an opening) should know.
A set of 10 tips are here; another 7 more are here.
Here’s an 18th tip: what you do in the search process can stick with you for a lifetime.
While the world is incredibly small – Wendy Yanowitch’s saying that “The world is made up of (just) six people and lots of mirrors” is pretty true- what you do in the search process or even what you do outside of the search process can find a home in any record a search firm keeps.… Read the rest
We’re all aware that we live in a land of chronic spin. Things aren’t just good, they’re “terrific.”
When it comes to hiring, it always pays to hire the person who will perform in the job, not the best boaster.
Here’s how:
Hiring candidates that perform, research at Google has reaffirmed, is best done through solid behaviorally-based interviewing.… Read the rest
The interviewer with a candidate at the Starbucks in Hong Kong Central seemed nice, bright and engaging.
She was, unfortunately, conducting a train wreck of an interview in front of me; when she asked early on, “You’re not a micromanager, are you?” I thought she was a goner.
When the candidate smiled, said “Of course not” and she smiled back, I knew she was dead on arrival,
She had just confirmed that the candidate had a pulse and an IQ (e.g.… Read the rest
The prospective client I met yesterday had a great set of skills, and an accomplished career.
The problem? Their type of job – and many of the ones like it – were going away as the industry contracted.
If you hang your hat on your job title, there’s not much left to hold on to when that type of job goes away, either due to technological change (think data entry specialists) or an industry consolidates and you’re trying to move to another sector where your skills are transferable..… Read the rest
It can be tough being a candidate, whether it be for a job or even one of those roles of a more public political variety.
Even if you’re seen as a slam dunk pick (think Hillary Clinton as the “inevitable choice” during the 2008 presidential campaign), things derail. The same is true of job candidates.
A client recently was being wooed by a firm until he thought they’d gone frosty on him; his hunch was that they’d decided he was really a “generalist” in background when they’d figured out they really wanted a “specialist.… Read the rest