Archive for August, 2009
« Previous EntriesAre We More Successful Dead Than Alive?
Monday, August 31st, 2009
I saw a recent heading to a column recently: “Health proponents Hope Kennedy Memory Propels Legislation.” In the column, Mike Aitken of SHRM stated that, “The health care measure may gain momentum this fall with Kennedy’s passing.” It is amazing how people can be much more influential and successful when they are gone – Elvis, Van [...]
Careening Down The Slippery Slope
Sunday, August 30th, 2009My favorite talk show guys out of Sacramento were chatting about a company in that fine city which was firing people for sexual harassment. One of the hosts told the story that went something like this:
One employee told an off-color joke in the coffee room. A couple of those present laughed. Two employees left the room. [...]
Good News For Training and Development
Thursday, August 27th, 2009According to my research, many companies are not slashing Training and Development budgets even in this downturn. Maybe they have finally gotten the message that the investment in people development pays off.
Studies have shown that Training and Devlelopment are directly linked to company success/profitability.
Unfortunately for me, when I was working in Silicon Valley, each recession meant [...]
Work-Life Balance Under Fire
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009Jack Welch recently advised us in Human Resources to “over-deliver” if we want to have a seat at the table. Frankly, I think we tend to “over-deliver” too much – too much of our own stuff. For example, Jack criticizes the term, “work-life balance.”
I was always hesitant about pushing this concept. I grew up in Silicon Valley where [...]
“HR People, Get Out Of The Picnic Business”
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009So, says Jack Welch to about 6000 Human Resource Professionals. He actually said, “Get out of the picnic and insurance forms business.” He then asked the audience, ”How many of you believe that you are perceived as valuable as the CFO?” About 10% thought that they were and I bet half of those were wrong.
I’m sure [...]
Eternal Problem Number 2
Monday, August 24th, 2009There are problems in companies that just don’t seem to go away. How many times did I hear, “My boss needs this stuff more than I do!” when I was conducting a Management Development Workshop. This leads me to Eternal Problem Number 2: The Manager’s Boss who doesn’t know how to manage.
The root cause of this [...]
Ten Solutions To The Eternal Problem
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009I just read an article about supervision and how we tend to promote the wrong people into supervisory jobs and then don’t train them to be successful. This got me thinking about how some problems just don’t seem to go away.
Here are 10 steps to solving this age old problem:
1. Hire people who are passionate [...]
Twittering Your Life Away?
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Okay, so I’m not into tweeting. Actually only 10.7% of Internet users visit the Twitter site. Of all the visitors to the site, only 16.7% are under 25 (surprised me!). A recent poll said that 40% of what is on Twitter is useless blather.
One would think that everyone is tweeting. Well, they’re not. And ever [...]
3 Mistakes Job Applicants Make
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
Mistakes job applicants make:
1. They believe that an effective way to apply for a job is to use the Internet Job Boards.
2. They go to job fairs.
3. They listen to a consultant who tells them to create a functional resume rather than a chronological resume (listing jobs starting from the current one).
First of all, the chronological resume is [...]
Leadership Ain’t Easy
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Yesterday, I shared what I learned the hard way about Leadership. This got me thinking about Leadership in general. I know that there are tons of books out there on the subject and even though they might be helpful, the principles are hard to implement for some people. Why? Because they require right brain activity. [...]
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