Posts Tagged ‘ Team Building ’

Adversity: It’s Not Whether It Will Happen But How You React That Counts

February 3, 2012
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Adversity: It’s Not Whether It Will Happen But How You React That Counts

At some time you’re going to face serious adversity. Maybe you already have. Your crisis may be an internal or external one, but it will come. The more extensive your leadership reach, the more likely you are to face these situations. The impact can be disastrous for your business and for you personally. Just ask executives at Toyota or BP. Once you’re there, the only thing that matters is your ability to navigate through the storm. While each situation is unique, and there is no prescriptive formula for success, you’ve got to carefully manage these five things or you...

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Shattering the rules: The too hard pile

January 4, 2012
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Shattering the rules: The too hard pile

It is because of fear that we look at change as being too hard. We believe the obstacles insurmountable. The deck is stacked against us, or maybe we just don’t know how – so we fear looking foolish if we fail. So we don’t try. We throw things on the Too Hard pile and forget about them. We throw them there, so we don’t try and we just accept. We accept until we start to believe things are this way for a reason. We believe long enough to start to defend it,...

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Typical Recruiting: The first step to the last straw

January 3, 2012
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Typical Recruiting: The first step to the last straw

From time to time I am contacted by recruiters, usually third-party folks who are looking to gain a commission, and once in a while I get a message from an in-house recruiter who has found my resume on monster.com or LinkedIn. The typical introduction, whether by phone or email, tends to go something like: Hello, I am ___________, a senior recruiter with ___________. I have a position I think you are a perfect fit for. Please forward me your resume and I’ll give you more details about the position. Now, all of that sounds normal, right? It’s...

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Understanding that Results are an absolute

December 21, 2011
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Understanding that Results are an absolute

As I continue to contemplate the machinations of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), I've had a few conversations recently with people who are trying to understand how ROWE works. While I am far fom an expert, I have come up with a few things in order to share my understanding.

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It’s not, “Should HR lead change?” It’s, “Why do we need HR to lead change?”

December 7, 2011
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HR may or may not be at the Vanguard of creating the culture of the company. In fact, it might not be much more than a Benefits and Compliance department, but someone in the organization clearly has an understanding of the human resources, even if it’s not Human Resources that’s in control. Which begs the question, what if not just someone – but everyone – in the company adopted the people-first mindset?

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“…honest, thorough, and ongoing self-criticism…is at the heart of continuous improvement”

November 17, 2011
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“…honest, thorough, and ongoing self-criticism…is at the heart of continuous improvement”

Dissent is, afterall, the outward sign of dissatisfaction combined with the will to say something about it. In no way should we convince ourselves that silence implies consent. Instead, we should first think that silence implies the lack of desire to say what's on your mind for fear of retribution. So, we return to Deming's philosophy, which told us to eliminate fear. A lack of dissenting opinion is the manifestation of fear. An explosion of tight agreement is, too.

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Zynga and the time-based incentive problem

November 15, 2011
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Zynga and the time-based incentive problem

On the heels of last week's post "$50,000 and time served" there's the troublesome case of Zynga, which promised early employees in the infancy of the startup's rise stock options, but is now asking those same employees to return the options in a compensation renegotiation. Several analysts (see CNN Money/Fortune and Washington Post articles) have described this an effort to align performance with compensation for those employees, however, the rest of, well, pretty much everybody sees this as renegging on a promise which, whether we're talking stock options or bubble gum, is never looked upon with much favor.

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Making Your Network…Work

November 11, 2011
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Making Your Network…Work

Recently, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to witness several strong examples of the positive impact that real, strategic networking can have. Being a part of these particular examples got me thinking a bit more about networking and what it truly means in the age of Facebook and LinkedIn.

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$50,000 and time served

November 10, 2011
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There is a company called SIB Development and Consulting in Charleson, SC where, after working there for 5 years, you are rewarded with a $50,000 cash bonus just for your 5 years of service. (See the CNN Money article here.) At first, this might seem like a wonderful incentive program. Unfortunately, the program highlights what might be the greatest problem fcing the business world: the belief that people can be bought, and the alarming number of people who are willing to sell.

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A little more conversation, please

November 7, 2011
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No audience is going to remember something because it was important to the person sending the message - they will remember it because it was important to them. Through two-way conversations, more information is shared, understood, refined and retained. So, why then is there so much emphasis on simply belching out information and so very little importance placed on engaging people in conversation in order to promote common understandings, even in the face of disagreement?

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Site Creator & Author: David M. Kasprzak

The content of this blog reflects my personal thoughts and opinions and should not be considered as those of my employers or associates, past or present, in any way.

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