Talent Management

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>. In the piece, the authors […]

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 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” […]

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 […]

 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. As we have noted in the Leaders Program workshops, hiring the right people is as important a […]

For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Q&A – “How Team Leaders Show Support – or Not”– with HBS faculty member Teresa Anabile. Though from 2004, the findings remain valid.  Professor Anabile’s research points to two key concepts for leaders who want to gain their staff’s confidence: 1.  Perceptions […]

For today’s reading we turn to John Baldoni’s blog at the Harvard Business Review for his piece “How to Make People Passionate About Their Work”.   Baldoni notes that generating passion for what you do is essential, and doubly so in difficult times.  He goes on to say that it is essential for a leader to have passion […]

There’s lots of advice on finding and attracting staff and on identifying and retaining top performers you already have.  Stephen DeMaio, in a recent blog entry – “How to Identify Employees’ Hidden Talents” – argues that it is even more important to look for your current staff’s hidden strengths to find new skills and talents that have […]

Well-integrated, high-performing teams, teams that “click,” is the subject of today’s Tuesday Reading – “How Leaders Get Their Teams To ‘Click’”  by Phil Harken.  Such teams never lose slight of their goals and are largely self-sustaining.  They often seem to take on a life of their own.  Studies by the European Centre for Organizational Research show that […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is from the April 28, 2009 Ask Annie column of Fortune Magazine:  “How to work better with Gen Y”.  The April 28th question has to do with working with a new class of interns – Generation Y individuals;  birth years 1978-1990 – who are very much like our younger employees. Anne Fisher, who writes the […]

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 […]