Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
There are the hard things to do to be successful in careers and business, and then there are the easy ones that get you along the way as well.
This post is about on the easy ones.
But first an intro story.
My week last week was probably like yours; lost of stuff to do, and perhaps too little time to do it.… Read the rest
The challenge when you’re running a company is to provide context; while short and sweet is great, most of the time it falls flat without some background when you’re laying out direction and mission.
CEO’s know most of the stuff in their heads. They live with the challenges, direction, obstacles, and enablers all the time. I’m sometimes surprised that CEO’s don’t set plates for those things at Thanksgiving as honored guests. … Read the rest
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is easy to admire.
The video content distribution company he founded stared bigger companies – Blockbuster, WalMart come to mind – in the eye and outperformed them when the business was a DVD market. As technology evolved away from DVD distribution to streaming video Hastings has astutely guided NetFlix through that transformation into another market leading position.… Read the rest
In the land (perhaps) of no surprises, it turns out the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has one set of ethics guidelines for rank and file and a different set for the 24 executive directors who oversee the organization. As in the rules for the rank and file don’t apply to the senior execs.
If the IMF moniker doesn’t ring bells, last week IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested for alleged rape of a hotel maid.… Read the rest
Tech valuations are popping (frothy is the well-used word) in the San Francisco Bay area. And the requirement to have high performing talent to quickly scale and produce a winning product may drive it all.
The scalp price for hiring or retaining top engineers was recently tabbed at $500,000 and the talent acquisition strategies of firms like Facebook includes the purchase of small start-ups only to shut them down and employ the newly acquired talent.… Read the rest
With ample help from the media, we are obsessed with the rockstar somethings – whether it be a CEO of a company, the new head at your kid’s school, or the coach of your favorite men’s National Basketball League team.
Good is not good enough; great is the order of the day. And in the hoax that is an assessment and selection myth like “topgrading and “A” players,” it means the person has to have gone to the right school, have the right degree, have the right look (preferably taller, thinner than heavier, and whiter or at least lighter) and run in the right circles.… Read the rest