Tag: Back West

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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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The Job Market: Quickening Thaw or Just a Hot Flash?

Image by bgottsab via Flickr

The job market – something I survey as unconsciously as most people breath air as part of my work  –  seems to be telling us something this first week of the Gregorian new year.

But what it is?

For a large part of the US population the Great Recession is like a parallel universe; heard about, but not part of anyone’s day-to-day existence.… 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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The 3R’s of How-to-Job-Network: Small Town, Big City

Garnerin releases the balloon and descends wit...
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Research supports that networking is the best way for most (people like you, as Richard Nelson Bolles of What Color is Your Parachute fame and I would suggest) to find your next job.  It’s estimated that 80% of job openings are unlisted, which means that most jobs will be filled through networking, not tossing a resume into a company’s applicant tracking system or even having coffee with your favorite executive recruiter.… Read the rest

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“How long should I wait until I look for another job after realizing the one I just got isn’t the right fit for me?”

Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in ...
Image via Wikipedia

My twitter friend Hutch Carpenter noted (tweeted actually) that “Quora is the new black” – always a signal that something may become popular – the website provides an interesting mix of questions and answers in a quasi-curated format. Co-founders Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever and the rest of the team have created for the moment a site what provides a rich collection of questions and answers on a host of topics.… Read the rest