Hiring is always hard. Hiring well is even harder. Really hard. One of our clients has finally committed to radically changing the way he hires and step one is the use of hiring tools such as DISC. Actually using the info from DISC is hard, too. Because the results often tell him something he …
management
Are You Popular?
This topic is often debated with fire and brimstone (what is brimstone?) And I seem to hold a minority opinion. Here it is: I absolutely believe that a manager can be both popular AND effective. There's an old saying; “management is not a popularity contest.” Au contraire, dear managers. It is a …
#1
Pretend that it’s one year from today and you are throwing a party to celebrate the #1 accomplishment that your team pulled off this year. You are celebrating ONE GREAT THING….the #1 thing that you asked them to deliver. The #1 thing where you asked your team to put a crazy intense focus. And they …
Are You Nailing Up Plywood?
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." W. Edwards Deming wrote that iconic line in the sixties and it could have been written last week. This was illustrated dramtically when Alan Greenspan recently apologized to America for not knowing that the cowboy bankers were ruining …
Performance v. Presence
I don’t understand why some managers resist hiring talented people because they want some form of flex time. Or want to work from home. If you've already jumped on the flex bus, that’s the right thinking. Because in this economy (and forever more, most likely) you have to attract and keep talent in …
Are you Brand X?
Companies spend billions trying to create compelling brands. Jello. Kleenex. Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. People have brands, too, and as a manager you surely have a brand in the eyes of your employees. Whether you know it or not. I recently went to my official, well organized digital card storage file …