Talent Management: Post #2--Obstacles and Opportunities

Outside Obstacles and Opportunities. Ideal ages for emerging execs is 35-45. There’s a 30% decline in those ranks as baby boomers age out, creating a big deficit of available emerging leaders. Pipeline issues abound—aging execs, not good job rotation for high potentials, and a lack of succession planning. Globalization, demographics and poor pipelines add up to a disaster. There are huge differences between “the best and the rest,” especially in more complex jobs.  The best salesperson at Nordstrom outsells others by 8 times; the best developers at Apple are 9 times as productive. Message: Retain top performers or suffer mightily

Talent Management: Post #1--The Enemy Withing

The Enemy Within. “At most companies, people spend 2%of their time recruiting and 75% managing their recruiting mistakes,” says Richard Fairbanks, CEO, Capital One. Through inertia, we avoid regular reviews of people, even when we know we don’t have the best people around us. Cutting your losses isn’t easy but is necessary to move ahead. We don’t work as hard evaluating insiders as we do outsiders. However, going outside is economically justified only 6% of the time as opposed to 30% for going “inside” for talent. When possible, promote from within after benchmarking to the best external potentials. Despite defined criteria, evaluators are highly influenced by attractive outside candidates and emotions. Create a checklist when selecting people for interviews. Decision fatigue (people make poorer decisions later in the day) affects our  choices. We make better decisions when we are fresh—after lunch or breaks.

It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz (Harvard Business Press, 2014) reviewed by Steve Gladis, January 2015.

HBR- Dec. Post--FINAL--Virtual Teams

Getting Virtual Teams Right

Virtual teams can outperform in-office teams if they’re the right team with the right leadership, right touch-points, and right technology (p. 120).
https://hbr.org/

HBR - Dec--Post #8--Corporate Functions

Why Corporate Functions Stumble
This article outlines a maturity model to help headquarters’ functions (HR, IT, Finance, etc.) as they progress from Youth to Adolescence, to Maturity, to Change cycles (p. 110). https://hbr.org/

HBR-Dec. -- Post #7--Groups

Making Dumb Groups Smarter
Based on informational signals and reputational pressures in groups, people polarize, focus on the obvious, amplify errors, and rush toward the wrong answer. Encouraging diverse points of view, expertise, and opinions thwarts these social de-railers for groups (p. 90).

HBR-Dec-- Post #6--New Power

Understanding “New Power”
Open, distributed, transparent “new https://hbr.org/
power models” (Kickstarter, Uber, LinkedIn) and values vary markedly from old power types (Britannica, Microsoft, NSA)—controlled, coveted, and exclusive (p. 48).

HBR-Dec Post #5--HR Officers and CEOs

Why Chief Human Resources Officers

Make Great CEOs: All the key C-level folks were tested on 14 elements of leadership in three categories (leadership, thinking, and emotional styles), and HR officers matched CEOs most closely (p. 30).  https://hbr.org/

HBR- Dec--Post #4--Innovative Leaders

Leading Your Team into the Unknown --Competitive innovation requires a new kind of leader who asks questions, allows failure, and supports experimentation (p. 80).
https://hbr.org/

HBR-Dec - Post #3--Business Experimentation

The Discipline of Business Experimentation: Many businesses innovate on gut and experience, which is often misleading. Rigorous, controlled experimentation works far better but requires purpose, discipline, and a reliable process (p. 70).https://hbr.org 

HBR-Dec Post #2--Innovation in 90 Days

Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days: Vital innovation comes from developing a minimally viable innovation system—identify customer unmet needs; start a small innovative team; appoint an executive sponsor (p. 60). https://hbr.org/

HBR--Dec--Post #1--Preview

Preview of the Review

—Harvard Business Review
Every month, I eagerly await my Harvard Business Review. I recommend it to every one of my executive coaching clients and their teams. If you don’t get it, you’re losing a critical competitive advantage. Here’s this month’s “Preview of the Review.” I will also be posting it on my Twitter feed: SteveGladis.
Spotlight Issue: Innovate Faster, Cheaper, Smarter

https://hbr.org/