Category Archives: Leadership
Hiring and Acquiring – Two Sides of the Same Coin?
It is hard to imagine two organisational activities that result in more high profile, costly failures and reputational damage than corporate acquisitions and senior level recruitment (although culture change probably comes close). Situations where high hopes and strong rationale underpinning an acquisition or senior level hire can quickly give way to the realisation that a big mistake has been made are all too common. At first glance they may not seem to be too similar; yet both activities share some of the same fundamental problems and issues. Given that failure in these activities is hugely damaging to businesses, isn’t it time businesses changed their approach to hiring and acquiring? Continue reading
HR and Big Data; Jumping the Gun?
Big Data is unlikely to lead to the breakthroughs in understanding of what makes success unless organisations start to take into account the key intangibles such as relationships and culture. To understand performance or lack thereof, we need to look far beyond the capabilities, characteristics or behaviour of individuals. Instead, relationships, culture, other intangibles and contextual factors play a larger role in understanding performance. Continue reading
3 Barriers to Adaptability and Change
There are 3 core barriers to adaptability and change. 1. Prioritising Short Term Profits 2. Short Term Thinking 3. An Addiction to Core Revenue Streams. By applying these 3 barriers to Nokia, Blackberry, Blockbuster, Kodak and others, it’s possible to see how each organisation struggled to meet oncoming changes and competitive threats to their businesses. Continue reading
The Hidden Cost of Collaboration
If we assume that the hidden cost of collaboration amounts to 10% of people’s working week, then this suggests significant improvements in performance and engagement can be realised through better collaboration. Equally, the 10% figure isn’t too far out of line given that other research suggests that 10 – 40% of people’s performance is based on the quality of their relationships. Continue reading
Why is Understanding People So Hard
The lack of tools that help us better understand people through reliable predictions undoubtedly contributes to the fact that understanding people is hard Continue reading
The Truth About Innovation
Over at HBR (here), Bill Taylor hits the nail on the head regarding the current obsession with innovation. Much like the focus on engagement a couple of years ago, innovation is the current area of focus. Business leaders have co-opted … Continue reading
Culture and Fit
A great post by Fred Wilson (here) looks at the role culture and fit play in growing companies. Rather than the quality of the products or services a company provides being the arbiter of performance, Wilson argues that it is … Continue reading
Management Courses that Change Behaviour – Yeah right!
Keith McGregor from Personnel Psychology NZ calls out some of the myths and mysteries around training and development and the prospect of realising change, or not… Over the years we have run many management training courses and get wonderful feedback … Continue reading
Be More Like Mathematicians!
Over at Boing Boing (here), Maggie Koerth-Baker points us in the direction of an interesting question posted on Quora (here), where someone asks “What is it like to have an understanding of very advanced mathematics?” In response, someone posted this … Continue reading
