I’ve been thing about this since I saw the book Humanize in 2012. The book was written by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant who run Human Workplaces. About that same time, I started blogging and tweeting using the #humanize hash tag. I thought I had started doing that before I saw their book, but memory is such an unreliable thing …
Company culture. The go-to excuse or ultimate reason for everything good or bad that happens at a company. It’s never the people – it’s the culture. It enables idiots and sinners. It encourages geniuses and visionaries. It is what makes each company different and unique. It’s also what everyone shares, making us the same. It is the ultimate paradox. It is both good and bad. It is common while still being individual. It allows you to mold it while …
As I survey the employee/employer relationship landscape, I really never see a great story. Oh, sure, there are good “anecdotes” here and there of some company (typically privately held, startup-mentality, uber-cool) doing something unique and interesting enough to get into INC and Forbes. These stories are the bloody chum consultants tweet, retweet, post and build models around (until the next …
How often do you challenge your assumptions? You know, those things that form the bedrock of your opinions, beliefs and decision making. Do you ever ask yourself if what you think you know, is really so? You should. My experience has been that many poor decisions and failed concepts can be traced back to believing some key fact or piece …
It’s time to discuss improving employee engagement. Or is it employee experience? Who knows anymore? All I know is we continue to work our butts off to find that secret sauce that will ensure employees connect with the company and pledge their eternal soul to you in HR, the department they work in, and the organization as a whole–yet nothing …
I started today’s post with the idea to riff on JTBD (that’s “jobs to be done” for those in Rio Linda), a point of view pioneered by Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen. JTBD is the idea that people don’t buy what you sell–they hire out a job to achieve an objective. Approaching your business in this way opens up additional …
Let’s start with a riddle: The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it you will die. What is it? I’ll answer it at the end of the post. Trust me, it will connect. While you’re thinking of the answer let’s have a quick chat. I’ve been noticing that the loud and monotonous drumbeat of reward and …
I read a lot of HR stuff about high performers. We all want an entire population of these employees at our companies. Adding more high performers means better overall results, which means better everything, right? Maybe not. Depending on your culture, you could be making it hard for the best performers to stay. As Long As It Helps Me A …
I started my own blog in 2006. Not an actual OG but very close. Heck, I used to use Typepad for chrissakes. That’s seriously old school. And some of (most of) my posts since that time have been about employee engagement. I know this because every time I’m up to write on Fistful of Talent I panic because I may …
“But Paul, you’re different. You like that technology stuff.” That’s what I get when I bring up a new way to manage a process with a new project management tool. Or when I try to introduce a web-based collaboration platform. Or even when I suggest we use group collaboration in Office 365. Real truth? I don’t always like “that technology …
