I have seven axioms in my personal philosophy of choice, and these guide me when I get confused or bewildered or just need perspective.  What about you?  Do you have a personal philosophy of life and are you willing to share any of it with us?

I always have a choice, and I’m going to make sure I make better choices today from greater awareness and wisdom.

How can this be?  Productivity is supposed to be a good thing.  Productivity is the measure of how much a business produces divided by the number of workers, so if productivity goes up a business should make more money.  How can this be a talent killer?

Think about the definition again.  One way to “juice” productivity is to lay off workers.  In the short term, productivity goes up (and investors usually cheer as the stock price rises) until the burden of producing weighs too heavily on a workforce that is too lean.  Another way to increase productivity is to sell more, take on big orders, without fully staffing for the increased demand.  This will also lift productivity–for a a short while.  You can cheapen the brand, cut development or innovation, or manage by dictate:  management declares a super-stretch result that leaves everyone scrambling to “hit the number.”

All of these examples (which are far too common) involve a focus on the short-term, some degree of manipulation, and a failure to deal with longer-term consequences.  And those are what is killing good talent practices in business.  How?  By treating people like human resources, not people who can contribute to the company if given the opportunity.  By failing to invest in sustainable gains in revenue, growth and productivity.  By stressing out workers, you give them an incentive to go to your competition.

The path to illusory productivity involves short-term thinking, shifting the burden to workers, or some kind of management shell game that hides the real dynamics–for a while.  These kinds of productivity gains are what is killing good talent in American business.

Not all productivity has to come with these tradeoffs.  There are other ways to grow productivity that promote good talent management:  through more employee engagement; by investing in training and skill development; through analyzing business processes and cutting out the waste and rework; by building a valued brand and unique culture that is hard or impossible to duplicate elsewhere.  The productivity that results from these kinds of practices is sustainable for the business and it tends to engender more loyalty and trust in the workforce.

Which kind of productivity is your company focused on ?  Let me know by leaving a comment.

I owe inspiration for the headline and article to Henry Mintzberg, management professor and contrarian thinker at McGill University in Montreal (see his article in Harvard Business Review July 2007).

We also have to guard against mistaking our measurements and our models with the whole picture.  There’s always more than what we can see or measure, and we need to avoid wearing self-made blinders.  It’s in the hidden spaces that wild and chaotic forces lurk.

Peter Bernstein was a remarkable example of intellectual humility and having a healthy respect for risk and uncertainty.  He warned us about trying to quantify the unquantifiable. I remember reading his bestseller Against the Gods in 1996 and gaining a deeper grasp of risk, hazard and management in the process.  We lost Peter last week at the age of 90, but he left behind some sound advice for the rest of us.

In my work with companies I urge them to set up measurement systems, or to better use the data and measurements they already have at hand.  These can be remarkably useful for making better decisions and keeping a lively inquiry that challenges lazy thinking or sloppy habits.

And I also see much value in heeding G.K. Chesterton’s advice:

“The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor that it is a reasonable  one.  The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite.  Life is not an illogicality, yet is is a trap for logicians.  It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.”

Why do we dislike them so much?  Common reasons:

• The process feels awkward.
• It doesn’t yield meaningful information.
• Bosses don’t do it well.
• Employees experience great anxiety.
• It seems so subjective or unfair

How can we do a better job?

1. Focus on performance.  Seems obvious, right?  The major problem is that most jobs do not have clear performance expectations that are shared and understood by both management and employees.  We get vague generalities, “areas of responsibility”, or a listing of common tasks, but clear and measurable performance standards are often missing.  You cannot have a meaningful performance review unless there are clear performance standards for a job.  Managers who ignore this are responsible for a majority of the recurring headaches they face in managing people.
2. Create the right context.  This is not the time for counseling, grievances, or unfocused conversations.  The goal is to help the employee be successful and the company/organization to meet or exceed it’s objectives.  Appraisals are time for an honest assessment, for feedback so that people know for sure if they are getting the job done or not.
3. Use a simple format.  I like the one first suggested by Peter Drucker.  Start with a statement of the major contributions expected from the present position, then ask four questions:
   1. What has this person done well?
   2. What, therefore, are they likely to be able to do well?
   3. What does this person have to learn or to acquire to be able to the get the full benefit from their strength?
   4. If I had a son or daughter, would I be willing to have him or her work under this person?  (i)  If yes, why?  (ii) If no, why?

The truth is, most employees are frustrated by the lack of real information that comes out in a performance appraisal and the apparent subjectivity of the judgments made about them.  What they want to know is, “Am I doing a good job?  Where can I improve?”  Good managers that help them answer these questions in a fair and objective way garner a lot of respect.

Today, I posed a challenging question to myself:  What is the most important, greatest impact, longest lasting activity or objective I could get involved with right now?

I wrestled with this question for over half an hour and came up with three answers.  The third answer had seven sub-parts to it.  Asking myself questions like this allow me to go deep, to inquire into my real motivations, to examine what is truly important to me.

Leaders who want to develop top talent need to examine themselves periodically and be in touch with their deeper drives, motives, touchstones.  I find that when I do this for myself, I’m in turn more likely to take other people further and deeper in developing themselves.

Grab a journal and pose a challenging question or set of questions to yourself and then wrestle with the answers for a while.  It will do you good and it will help you grow as a leader too.  Then commit to do this on a periodic basis to keep your authenticity and integrity honed to a sharper edge.  It makes all the difference when the going gets tough.

Yesterday  John Mack, Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley told his shareholders that he has to pay employees well to keep top talent and grow the business, but he doesn’t see the ability to sustain that into the future.  The average bonus paid per employee in 2008 at Morgan Stanley was $143,000.  They have seen this as the cost of attracting top talent to the firm. 

The problem is that this is expensive and difficult to sustain, especially for huge companies the size of Morgan Stanley.  Mack referred to a phone call he had with a hedge fund manager who told him:  “I can hire anyone from you (Morgan Stanley) or Goldman Sachs…”, to which Mr. Mack had no real answer.  The chairman and CEO of a Fortune 100 company admits that he has no real clue about how to keep top talent when faced with an extension of his own strategy, which amounts to a bidding war. 

Here’s an idea:  pay people fairly for their talent, but don’t try to flatter their egos with excessive money.  That attracts the wrong kind of people.  Instead, focus on developing a team of people who embrace deeply what the company is about and are trained or equipped to deliver on that core mission.  Developing top talent is not really a money game unless you have deep pockets and are looking for mercenaries; it’s actually a discipline that top managers pursue and hone over time to produce sustainable results.

New discoveries in brain science seem to greet us almost every day.  How the mind and brain work is a fascinating field that just gets more interesting with each new discovery. 

We’re learning about different types of memory, the different regions of the brain where they are stored or accessed, how we process information both consciously and subconsciously, and how personality differences are reflected in distinct brain functions.

Some people seem born or endowed with special gifts or talents.  For them, applying their talents in a way that contributes is what makes them into top talent.  Can top talent be developed through sheer diligence in the absence of a special endowment?  It appears so.  Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers looked at research done on outstanding people and concluded that anyone could become an expert in anything by practicing for 10,000 hours.  What some would brand “obsession” may actually be one of the paths to learning something so well that you truly own it with a high level of mastery.

Everyone’s brain has an “executive function” that helps us to plan, organize and prioritize our actions.  Part of prioritizing is being able to shift our attention from one item to another or to keep from getting distracted or acting out habitual responses that would be counter-productive.  It appears that those people who we would call “top talent” are better able to exercise this executive function.  One interesting correlation to this is that bilingual or multilingual people seem to have more highly developed executive functioning in their brains.  They can monitor languages and keep them separate (part of the executive function), and they are better able to switch their attention when it’s necessary to learn something new.  I have witnessed this firsthand, first as a child in South America being exposed to Spanish, and as an adult in Asia learning Chinese.  Language learning seems to be one clear path to developing the executive function of the brain.

How do people arrive at the solution to knotty, complex problems without an obvious solution?  It seems very difficult to engineer or stage one of those “Eureka!” moments that leads to a breakthrough insight.  New research by Joydeep Bhattacharya and Bhavin Sheth makes the case that a person has to be in a particular state for insights to occur.  The processing of complex problems seems to occur most efficiently at a subconscious level, and Drs. Bhattacharya and Sheth showed that a flurry of subconscious brain activity often telegraphed a breakthrough even before a person became consciously aware of their breakthrough insights in a “light-bulb moment.”   The talent of solving complex or intractable problems seems to lie with those who stay with the problem and can fruitfully turn it over to their subconscious processing to arrive at a productive answer.

For some practical insights, look at the following resource:

John Medina has a great book out called Brain Rules.  I recommend you get a copy.  The free DVD that comes with the hardcover book is humorous and helps you really get the principles (he has 12 of them, some seem obvious, but others are really insightful).

I found it interesting that Goldman Sachs wanted to quickly return some of the government money it took last fall, partly so they would not be limited by government meddling in their compensation/bonus policies.  CEO Lloyd Blankfein knows that Goldman’s business model is based on generous financial rewards to top performers.  Other investment banks have said compensation caps will cause a flight of top talent.  Maybe multi-million dollar compensation only buys temporary rather than enduring loyalty.   They don’t call it a “money culture” without reason, and when the money isn’t flowing, the talent may not stick around.

Contrast that with the approach taken by Zappos.  The online retailer has quietly grown to $1billion in sales and in the process has built a culture that looks a lot like the exuberant workplaces of the dotcom era.  Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has focused on building a culture devoted to customer service and employee engagement.  Zappos gives a lot of attention to recruitment and training-hallmarks of firms that are committed to truly developing top talent.  Employees have some degree of latitude in making sure customers are satisfied, and Zappos has a very high number of repeat customers and they are still growing, even in a serious economic downturn. 

Developing a culture and keeping top talent doesn’t happen automatically and it’s not something that is simply fixed with money.  Oh, if only it were that easy.  But it is doable and companies like Zappos are showing it may be one of the few paths to competitive and strategic distinction.

Turn down the external noise (it helps to visualize actually turning down the volume).  Now look on your own situation as if you were a visitor from another planet trying to learn about humans.  Answer this question after some reflection:  “What is this person (remember, the visitor is looking at YOU)… what is this person actually able to control?  Where does this person exert the greatest influence?”

I know, these are strange questions.  We don’t think much about these things.  But if we did, I think we would notice that each person is able to control only what actions they take and the thoughts they think about.  There’s a lot of power in that, much more than we realize.  We’re usually so busy looking outside ourselves for answers, for cues about how to act that we forget where the center of our own power lies.

Our main source of power lies in what we think about and what we choose to do about it.  The people who most take this to heart look a lot like entrepreneurs.  We say they have initiative.  They strike out and take chances.  They do things that others often admire.  Entrepreneurs, instead of looking for a job, look for areas to be of service to other people (and make a profit in the process too).

“What then is to be done?  To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.” Epictetus, Discourses

I found a pretty extended elaboration of this on Tim Ferriss’ blog that speaks philosophically to entrepreneurs.

When it comes to developing top talent, look for entrepreneurialism first.  I look for an attitude that is willing to tackle things, that will look for what’s possible, not the opposite.   What’s important to you?

What qualifies as a “strategic” meeting?  When we are talking about or deciding on a substantive direction or outcome.  When we are discussing our own identity.  When the stakes are very high, either for us personally or for the organization.  All of these fit my definition of strategy. 

I was in a strategy meeting back in January a few months ago.  I remember a series of strategy meetings I chaired during a series of months over fifteen years ago.   I have learned to identify strategy in meetings even when I expected the predominant focus to be on operational or tactical issues.  That’s really an important point.  Ask yourself:  what is the purpose of this meeting?  Are we dealing mostly with strategy or with tactics?

Patrick Lencioni has written a powerful book about meetings called Death by Meeting.  I highly recommend it.  It applies more generally to different kinds of meetings, but it warrants a close reading anyway.  Lencioni says instead of avoiding conflict, we should seek out the right kind of conflict in meetings that matter.  He distinguishes between destructive interpersonal conflict where people are focused on personal hurts, sensitivities or hidden agendas and healthy, constructive ideological conflict where we disagree over assumptions or approaches and we discuss these openly. 

Dan Bobinski shares three key questions you can ask to keep things on track in a strategy meeting:  1. What results do we want from this action?  2. What must we do to achieve those results?  3. What knowledge, skills, or attitudes must we have/acquire to do those things?

Here’s a tip for you to consider about the next meeting you are part of:  Look for whether there is a connection to something you care deeply about.  Ask more questions about “what” is the aim or objective until it is clear to everyone before allowing the conversation to steer toward questions of “how” to get to the desired end goal.  If you find that you really don’t belong at this meeting, as soon as possible create a way to delegate, disengage or dismiss yourself from the meeting and choose to focus on something that is a higher priority for you and the organizaiton.