There are four ways to make a decision. One tends to be pretty bad, one tends to be pretty good. All four have their uses but there’s one mistake to avoid.
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The CEO with No People Problems
People problems occur when a team member doesn’t have the best possible employee experience. They exist at every company.
The Lack of Problems is a Problem
I was developing leadership training material for a client. In the course of our discussion, I asked the director of people operations, “What’s the problem we’re trying to solve here?” His response was something along the lines of, “I don’t like using the word ‘problem’.” Personally, I think words matter. So if he preferred ‘challenges’…
Stack Ranking. Welcome to the Early 2000’s
Activision|Blizzard|King (aka ABK) is a $50+ billion dollar video game publisher working as hard as any corporation you know to generate as much bad press for itself as possible. Latest news item: Blizzard terminates leader because they wouldn’t abide by the requirements of stack ranking policy. Stack ranking is ostensibly a method for producing high…
Best Supported Team I’ve Ever Seen
Yeras ago I was assessing the employee experience of a client’s team. This manager was VP at a multibillion dollar tech company and had just created a team of some three dozen folks. Mostly engineers, mostly new hires, some inherited from other parts of the org. This group was going to be doing leading edge…
Did You Do Your Annual Review? Hope not.
Annual performance reviews are a net negative experience for the company, the manager, and the team member. Here are some thoughts on fixing that.
“Did You Tell Them That?”
In every industry and in most situations, here’s a question you can ask as a manager to help team members solve their own problems
What To Do Before Posting the Posting
Most of us read a job posting and breeze through it. If you’re looking for a new role, you’ve probably seen dozens of similar descriptions already. You skim it and pick out what you consider salient bits. You find the bits you wanted, you apply, you get ghosted, you wonder why. You move on. This…
Self Awareness is Super Duper Important
Of the four broad categories of skills under the heading of emotional intelligence, I’d argue that self awareness is the most important
Make Your Team Healthier with Thanks
Adam Grant recently pointed out a peer reviewed study that indicates expressions of gratitude for your team members improved their cardiovascular response to stress. In simpler terms, thank someone and make them healthier. Past research has shown it takes roughly five times the number of positive comments to overcome the impact of a single negative…