Talent Management

John Maxwell, a very prolific writer on leadership, is the author of our Tuesday Reading for today:  “Influence:  Connecting with People”. Maxwell’s thesis is straightforward;  … “until leaders learn the art of connection, their influence remains minimal.”  To help us make connections, he offers eight practical steps: 1.  Don’t take people for granted. 2.  Possess a difference-maker mindset. 3.  Initiate movement toward […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “Stay Out of the Bunker”from the New York Times Under New Management column.  There Kelly Holland says that even though this may be a very challenging time for managers, employees still need leadership if they are to function effectively.  She suggests seven behaviors for leaders: 1.  Treat employees as responsible adults, […]

For today’s reading we turn to advice from José Carlos Eiras, former CIO of DHL-Express US and also European CIO and Global Services Information Officer at General Motors, found in “Practical Advice for CIOs Struggling to Survive in Tough Times“. After talking briefly about the choices IT leaders struggling with tough times — either ”hunker […]

  In today’s reading “How to Deal with Problem Employees”, John Baldoni addresses an issue that every manager and leader will, sooner or later, have to address -– confronting an employee whose behavior disrupts other staff.  When such behavior occurs, if we don’t step up, we are saying by our actions that it is OK for […]

In today’s Tuesday Reading “It’s Not About You”, Robert Joss, Phillip H. Knight Professor and Dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business, recalls a Jack Welch talk about leadership and Welch’s book, Winning.  As Joss recalls, Welch’s most profound comment was that leadership is not about you;  it’s about the people who work for you.  “The day you become a […]

Too often, we take people for granted.  In this week’s Tuesday Reading “Staff Retention:  The Power of Appreciation at Work”, Mike Robbins quotes the U.S. Department of Labor as noting that 64% of Americans who leave their jobs say they do so because they don’t feel appreciated.  And, Gallup reports that 70% of people in the U.S. say […]

Have you ever had a manager who was abrasive on your staff?  You know, the person who causes you headaches, who have aggressive management styles that create interpersonal friction, reduce motivation and trust to rubble, and disrupt work well beyond the group they lead.  In “Taming the Abrasive Manager:  Words from the Boss Whisperer”, Laura Crawshaw, president of […]

During the course of a Leadership Program many of the participants ask how to conduct effective meetings and even more groan under the impact of the meetings on their calendars.  This weeks reading, Eight Steps to More Effective Meetings which can be found at <http://www.cio.com/article/141300/Eight_Steps_to_More_Effective_Meetings>, provides some concrete data on the negative impact of ineffective meetings […]

Early last month, I was talking with with a businessman who is now the president of a small college in New York. In the course of our conversation, he noted how rude his faculty were to one another.  I couldn’t help reflecting on the rudeness I had observed among IT staff members during my two decades […]

Several weeks ago I was pointed to UBS’s Knowledge Center and a short piece True Leaders Must “Walk the Floor.”  This piece reinforces the importance of communicating with staff.  It notes that many leaders have found that interacting with their staff by walking around can build relationships, help staff understand their leader’s goals, and provide […]