Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Bud Tunt, one smart exec with whom I worked at Fortune 15 McKesson, told me that the savviest thing you could do in business was to take away all the excuses.
Bud was on so something.
There are three camps; people who care and support you or your ideas, people who care and have criticism about you or your ideas, and people who don’t care or support you and sit on their hands.… Read the rest
McKesson Corporation, where I worked as a senior exec for over a decade, had a habit of the yearly reorganization – usually in March right before the start of the fiscal year on April 1. Reporting relationships changed, some people got shifted, some people got whacked, and business continued along.
Rarely did things in terms of the running the business significantly change.… Read the rest
Gawker was promoted buzz this past month with speculation that an exec from a leading San Francisco Bay area company was gay. It’s helpful to remember that this is the publication that uses headlines such as “Anderson Cooper is a Giant Homosexual and Everyone Knows It” or “Which Pregnant Actress Has a Famous Cheating Husband.” It may be published, but it’s clearly Rupert Murdoch-style journalism.… Read the rest
Colin Neenan noted that “Life just seems so full of connections.”
It’s those connections, and the behaviors that impact that, that inform my work. In my consulting practice coaching executives and teams, as well as career coaching, I’m focused on those actions and behaviors rather than the feelings and emotions behind them. That “behaviors first” approach in business enables individual and team coaching clients to achieve quicker, more durable and quantifiable results..… Read the rest
Like the obese man who can’t understand how he’s gaining weight as he grabs a diet Coke to go with his triple Big Mac and large fries, one of the easiest ways to fire someone – like dieting incorrectly – is to hire wrong: right person hired into the wrong culture, wrong role, wrong supervisor, wrong time, or wrong skill set.… Read the rest
Mike Latham, who I know through my work at Barclays Global Investors, is a good guy and a good
manager:
He gets things done, is transparent in his dealings, is funny, works hard, knows the business, and is respected and liked by the people with whom he works.
His job title – CEO of United States iShares – looks like a great example though of “paying” people with a title in order to retain them.… Read the rest