Imagine a company that puts its needs before that of their customers. Consider what the shelf life of that organization would be. Picture, if you can, the number of good things that would be said about that organization. Zero – the answer is zero. That’s because no one would choose to work with a company that doesn’t put their users …
3 Reasons HR Should Pay Attention to the Amazon-Whole Foods Deal
$13.7 billion buys a lot of organic quinoa. Lots of talk around Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods and what it means for the grocery business, farmers, those whose jobs will be lost to automation, and the retail industry as a whole. It’s a cocktail of doom and gloom mixed with the reality of capitalism and a twist of efficiency. So …
5 Truths You Can’t Change About Learning in the Workplace
Let’s be honest – a lot of organizations (most, in fact) play lip service to the concept of learning and development. We say it’s important, but our spend per employee is a fraction of what’s reported by the Bersins of the world, our managers can’t generally make time to pull people off the floor/out of the field for L&D activities …
Development Plans For HiPos: Complicated
Let’s face it, most of you have high potentials at your company. Whether they work for you directly or are part of your extended team, they’re there. Also, you may or may not have a formal succession plan in place and even if you do, you may or may not have told them they’re a part of it. Translation: Thinking …
PREACH IT: March Madness Means Half Your Employees Are Back to Mailing It In…
It’s mid-March in the United States. That means the following things: – Some of your employees are about to get absolutely hammered this Thursday on St. Patrick’s Day. Green dye in the liquid of their choice? Absolutely no problem. If there’s one thing Americans can do, it’s celebrate days that are centered around other countries. We’re Irish on 3/17. We celebrate …
What Is “Thinking Strategically” Anyway?
Throughout my career, I’ve seen employees lauded or criticized for their ability to “think strategically.” It’s in numerous competency models and used in performance management systems across the country. We use this term like it’s universally understood, but ask people to describe it and you’ll probably hear inconsistency. So what is “Thinking Strategically” anyway? To understand what it is, let’s …
If You Never Change Your Mind, You’re Doing It Wrong
Hopefully by now you’ve warmed up to the notion that productive conflict is important to encourage in your teams. To get the most out of their insights and input, you want to welcome opposition and creative pushback. The days of blindly following our leaders without objection or pressure-testing are behind us. In the knowledge economy, effective leaders encourage opposition to …
WEBINAR: Bootstrap Your Training Function: 5 Ways To Make Learning Matter In Your Company
It’s true. You know the true power of learning and development, known to the laypeople in your company by the pedestrian term “Training.” A revamp of your approach to learning and development has been on your project list for no less than two years—but day-to-day HR and workforce management duties has kept it in the “someday” bucket. We feel …
Admitting Imperfections Can Be So… Perfect
It happened again. We spent two weeks putting everything we had into preparing a pitch for organizational consulting work to a potentially huge client, and—once again—were shot down. This wasn’t unheard of. Any career in consulting is going to be rife with rejection. But it always stings a little bit when you see 150 hours of your work poured down …
Game On
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been elbow deep in online learning. Newsflash: Translating a dynamic live training experience into an equally engaging online learning experience isn’t for the faint of heart. With the right material, I can get a group of groaning managers to submit themselves to dreaded roll-play exercises in a way that keeps them asking for more role-play …