Articles
A Road Map for Presidents and CEOs
The most important decision executives make is who they name as manager, at all levels in a company. Randall J. Beck Gallup Organization CFO asks his CEO, "What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave the company?" CEO answers, 'What happens if we don't, and they stay?" Are you feeding and keeping your best people?. Author unknown If you want to grow a prosperous thriving company here are ten steps on the continual improvement journey. Step One: Leadership Awareness. If there is one thing that good leaders do very well and with great consciousness [...]
Does intuition lead to fuzzy decision-making?
In past columns I have asked, “Who does the best thinking in your organization?” The purpose of these questions is to focus on two different and yet important types of thinking: Creative thinking that generates new ideas that can be exploited for the growth and prosperity of the business, and analytic or critical thinking to select the best ideas and to implement them as flawlessly as possible. Without good thinkers an organization’s viable life is not likely to be long. Often, the creative thinkers are not the same people as the analytic people and therefore having a “thought-leader” team that [...]
The Constant Balance for Organizations
The ceo of a large construction company once told me that business is easy to understand: There are only three parts; Get work (sales), Do work (production), and keeping score (do you make money?). I have shared that concept with numerous clients over the years, and while it is easy to grasp, the balance between get work and do work is always challenging. Sometimes, you have too much capacity and not enough sales. Other times, the sales are pouring in and the do work folks can't keep, risking poor quality and customer relations.
Personality Testing: After the Hire
"My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too." – Jack Welch "If you don’t invest the time to do it correctly today, you will spend more time and money in repairing mistakes tomorrow." -- Don Paullin My last two articles have explored the value of personality testing primarily as a pre-hiring tool for businesses. Now let’s take a look at how it can be used once a candidate has been hired. Onboarding To recap from my last article, [...]
9 Steps for Family (and other) Business Succession
The Family Business Center at the University of New Hampshire has put together “Nine Helpful Steps Toward Succession in a Family Owned Business:” You will notice that all of the steps' major components are “human capital” issues. These steps are valid for family owned business but most are also valid for any closely held business. 1. All family members, whether active in the business or not, need to be put on notice by the family head, that the process is about to begin. 2. Family members active in the business can become a committee to examine the issues. Key executives [...]
Personality Testing: Don’t Hire Without It
“Having the most talented people in each of our businesses is the most important thing. If we don’t, we lose.” –Jack Welch while CEO of GE "If you don’t invest the time to do it correctly today, you will spend more time and money in repairing mistakes tomorrow." – Don Paullin Would you describe your employees as Google-y, Apple-ish or Microsoft-esque? In other words, what do you know about the personalities that drive performance in your workplace? Studies on personality assessments as predictors of job performance consistently demonstrate their merit, confirming a significant improvement in job match when a personality assessment [...]