Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Malcolm Gladwell had Sandy Nininger. I have March Madness. The results are the same.
Mere talent is taking a beating.
Gladwell’s writings – built in part on the work of people like Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth – have shown that raw talent – smarts as we like to say in the business world – is overrated.
Gladwell demonstrated in The Talent Myth that hiring by collegiate pedigree – shorthand for smart – gave us the Enron fiasco (with McKinsey & Co’s significant backing).… 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
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
Sometimes the greatest risk you can take is to take no risk at all.
Or as James Dean phrased it, “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”
Three events this week brought that thought squarely home.
Thomas Edison noted “The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work, second, stick-to-itiveness, and third, common sense.”
Carol Dweck, Anders Ericsson, and Angela Duckworth have the first two qualities well-covered, I’ll take a crack at the third.
“Common sense,” it’s been said (C. E. Stowe) “is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.”… Read the rest
Albert Einstein noted “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
So what’s up with the craving for the sweet smell of success people that people are determined to avoid the taint of failure?
Biotech CEO Robert Johnson told me that when he did business development at Lilly he was paid to bring deals forward for the firm to consider.… Read the rest