Every so often a management team gets stuck in a rut; that murky sloggy place where for no good reason progress just slows down. Everything takes looooooonger. You discuss the same projects over and over. Nothing much really happens. The pending lists just get a little longer every day. It’s the way …
recruitment
All You Gotta Do Is Ask – Part II
It is absurd, crazy, dumb and totally absent of common sense when a hiring manager doesn’t call a candidate’s references. There is absolutely no excuse to justify skipping this essential step. Puh-lease become evangelical about calling references. I promise it will pay off huge for you every …
Hiring is Hard
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 …
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 …
Making Great Hires
It’s time to play that really fun business game called “Making Great Hires.” Question: do you know that hiring well is the most important skill that a managers must do well? Answer: If yours is yes, then you will get all the money. Making great hires means: matching employees and new hires with …
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 …