Talent Management

For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to an Adam Bryant interview of Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons which appeared in the December 3, 2011 NYTimes.  IT Leaders Coach Greg Anderson called this interview – which can be found at <http://nyti.ms/tw4lR0> – to my attention.  It seemed to be a particularly fitting way to begin the New Year.  

Fundamentally, the column is President Simmons’ leadership journey.  Some of the key lessons I found in the piece are:

By selecting this article for today’s Tuesday Reading, I’m not suggesting that you should be out looking for a job.  Rather, given the author, Steve Tobak, who has extensive experience on both sides of the hiring desk, I thought that his piece “What Hiring Managers Really Look For” was excellent advice for the hiring manager.

I think we are all micromanagers at heart.  This week’s reading is a short piece by John Baldoni, “Get Involved without Being a Micromanager:  3 Tips” which recently appeared in BNET’s leadership blog.

We all dive deeply into the details;  sometimes when we are the only one with the necessary skills and expertise.  But, more often it’s counterproductive and even harmful.  And, too often we do so when we need to feel that we are personally making a difference.

Baldoni provides three guidelines to help us decide when to dive in:

Today’s reading is a short piece by Jeff Haden, “One Small Step for You – One Giant Leap for Employees”.  Haden learned much of what he knows about management as he worked his way up the printing business from forklift driver to manager of a 250-employee book plant.  The rest he picked up from ghost writing books for some of the smartest CEOs he knows in business.

In the article, Hayden provides two short personal stories of bosses he has had congratulating him on his work.

Today’s reading is “Managing Yourself:  Stop Holding Yourself Back”from the Harvard Business Review.  The authors are Ann Morriss, managing director of the Concire Leadership Institute and Robin Ely and Frances Frei, both professors at the Harvard Business School.

Morriss, Ely, and Frei have been studying for over a decade what gets in the way of ambitious employees who want to step up and lead.  Ely has studied race, gender, and leadership;  Frei has focused on coaching senior executives; and Morriss works on unleashing social entrepreneurs.

Today’s reading comes from Anthony Tjan’s Harvard Business Review Blog.  Tian is CEO of the venture capital firm Cue Ball and is a recognized business builder.  The piece “Six Habits of a Talent Magnet,” which he wrote with Tsun-yan Hsiehm chair of the LinHart Group, can be found at <http://bit.ly/e5VSWy>.

Last Saturday, Erik Lundberg, ITLP alum from the University of Washington, found at interesting piece – "Google's Quest to Build a Better Boss" – in the New York Times and sent it to me.  Erik noted that "By analyzing data from within its own ranks, Google proves what management practitioners already preach.  But then implements it in a way that resonates with technical/engineering types."

In today's reading "Thank You for Doing Your Job", Whitney Johnson argues the value of saying thank you for routine work that contributes to the organization's well being.

Today, there is too little praise or appreciation voiced in our work environments.  In fact, I remember an organization that almost prided itself in being a "praise-free" zone.  Yet genuine gratitude goes a long way to engage people and bind them together, to say nothing about strengthening an building relationships.

Today’s reading is a short essay, reproduced below, by Roger Schwartz in his newsletter Fundamental Change.  He makes two significant points that caught my attention:  First, accountability is a two-way street.  Not only do your staff have accountability to their manager, but the manager, you, have accountability to them.  And, second, all feedback needs to be timely.  Said differently, it becomes stale very rapidly.  Schwartz suggests that if you have not given the feedback within a week of observing either something good that needs to be recognized or something ineffective that needs to b

 Today’s reading is – IT Hiring:  How Thomson Reuters’ CIO Identifies Cultural Fit – a recent piece appearing in the CIO newsletter.  It features an interview of Kelli Crane, senior vice president and CIO of Thomson Reuters by Beth Ehrgott.