“How do I stop the headaches without firing my people?”

You own the business and so all the problems that can’t be solved by others end up in front of you.  You have someone who handles personnel matters, but that means the transactional side of HR.  The personal issues, interpersonal conflict, lack of performance, all of the soft, squishy (but really difficult) stuff comes to you.  And you wish you could make it go away without needing to fire someone.  Maybe you can… Read the rest of this entry »

Meltdown, bailouts, recession–the last six months have provided quite a crash course in economics for us.  There has been a lot of talk about Wall Street vs. Main Street, as if you could easily separate the two.  The truth is, you can’t.  What is needed right now is a serious capital reinvestment in the economy.  I’m not talking about infusions of cash and liquidity like the Federal Reserve has been attempting.  I’m talking about an investment in human talent. 

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50 Classics

For those of you intently focused on developing your top talent I recommend the following resource as a guide.  It tells you where to look for inspiration, original ideas, the great thinkers.

Tom Butler-Bowdon has put together 50 Classics of Success, Self-Help, Spirituality, Psychology and now Prosperity.  That’s 250 books total… Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was in a session with several executives benchmarking a job.   That term is used to describe a number of different activities or approaches, so let me give you an insiders view of what we did.  

Our task was to determine what the organization needed from this job for superior performance (in our case it was the job of President of the company).  We discussed key results that the person filling the role of President was accountable for producing.  When we agreed on the five key results, our assignment next was to “let the job speak”.  Read the rest of this entry »

I just got back from a trip to Mexico City and besides having a fabulous time with my wife I also learned a few things on this trip.  On our first day in the city we went to the renowned Museum of Anthropology and were dazzled by the talent that was on display. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Antropología to read more, or go to the museum’s site http://www.mna.inah.gob.mx/)

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One thing I’ve observed is that top talent tends to be active in networking.  Whether it is intentional and on-purpose or something that seems to naturally happen, leaders are active in forging and nurturing relationships in an ongoing way. 

If you are a general manager, company owner or executive, you of course need to be active in networking within your industry and in the larger community.  That is part of honing your own edge and staying sharp.  You also need to be aware of what your top talent is doing and how well connected they are.

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I was looking through some notes in my personal development notebook today and I was transported back over ten years ago to an experience I had listening to a development program.

I was living in another town and very early in an entrepreneurial venture, which is another way of saying I didn’t have much money at the time.  I listened to a program by Earl Nightingale, a classic motivational speaker who had already passed away back in 1989.  The program was called Lead the Field and I can still remember being struck by Earl’s statement that the vast majority of people never dedicate themselves to excellence, to leading the field in their chosen endeavor.  Whether that be education, business or social service, most people start with dreams and ideals and then abandon the goal before realizing them.

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The aikido dojo I train in had a significant event over the weekend.  Five of our members took a test, and I was one of them.

I won’t go into all the background here about aikido (*see the footnote below if you’re interested).  Since we don’t have competitions or tournaments in aikido, testing (and the training that leads up to that) is one of the times when we are able to assess what we have learned and how much more there is to learn.  Besides demonstrating specific techniques that are called out early on, the last part of the test involves multiple attackers coming at you from all directions and you have to effectively deal with each attack without injuring yourself or anyone else.  It is a true test of poise under pressure.

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Pardon the somewhat philosophical title for this post.  But I do ask it with some earnestness.  I commented before about how “talent” is climbing up the list of important business issues that executives are paying attention to.  I also noted that CEO’s seem to have great difficulties explaining what they mean by talent.

Here’s why:  they lack data.  Hard measurements and operational data belong to the CFO and the production side of the business.  When it comes to talent, we can’t agree on what we’re talking about because we simply cannot measure it.  The truth is we can, but most people don’t know how. 

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Here’s a personal anecdote that happened to me that I think says something about talent, how we assess it and factor it into our decisions.

I’ve wanted to start working with a personal trainer for some time.  Last year I talked about it with my doctor and she made some recommendations to me.  We worked on my diet and I spent most of last year getting the nutritional picture right (my doctor has an emphasis–and expert training–on functional medicine, which is exceedingly rare to find in my experience).

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