I’ve been playing in rock and roll bands, full-time and part-time, for almost 40 years. The best bandleader I’ve ever worked with once said, “This is the best job on the planet! Where else do people applaud and cheer you on while you’re working, and then when you knock off work they tell you how […]
Archive | Attracting and Retaining “A” Players
Theory X and Theory Y Are Both Right
I don’t hear as much talk about Douglas McGregor’s Theory X & Theory Y these days. That’s a shame, because it’s a very helpful model for leaders. If you remember, Theory X sees people as basically lazy and motivated by external rewards and punishments (“the carrot and the stick”). Theory Y sees people as basically […]
Is Your World Fair?
So I’m sitting in class during graduate school, and one of the worst professors we’ve ever had makes one more arbitrary, disorganized, and incredibly time-wasting assignment right before final exams. Before I could stop myself, I said, “But that’s not fair!” His response was, “The world isn’t fair.” Since I was now on a roll, […]
Bulletin: Atlanta Falcons Recruit Cheap Players
No, this is not a real bulletin (sorry Mr. Blank), but imagine if it were. If we assume that the main goals of the Atlanta Falcons are: 1) to be profitable, and 2) to win championships (which tends to help with profitability), then recruiting really cheap players makes no sense at all. And yet I’ve […]
Hiring: When Being Slack Pays Off
When is the right time to hire new members for your team? It’s a tough decision. Everyone knows that you make a profit by making more than you spend, and one way to do this is by keeping your costs as low as possible. For a lot of organizations, their major cost is people, so […]
Core Values, Mom, and Apple Pie
Sometimes when I ask leadership teams to define their core values, they’ll say something like. “Oh, that’s a waste of time. I’ts just Mom and Apple Pie stuff; everyone knows what’s important here.” Later, when they’re being sued for unethical business practices (Wells Fargo, anyone?), they tend to see things differently. All decisions begin with […]
The Right People Is Most of the Battle
I’ve just rediscovered for (for the umpteenth time) one of the most basic truths about building a high-performing business: adding the right people is most of the battle. Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? And yet we all get distracted from this basic wisdom from time to time. Sorry ladies; we’re back to sports metaphors, […]
Fighting the Millennial Tsunami
Lately I’m hearing a lot of complaints from my CEO friends and clients about Millennials, especially about them being “lazy” and “lacking loyalty.” This is worrisome since the Millennial generation (born 1980-1995) is the largest single generation represented in today’s work force. As of 2015, the Millennials are a legitimate workforce tsunami. The estimates I’ve […]
The Top 5 Traits for CEO Success
Finding the right leader to lead an organization to success is always a challenge. The start of that process, creating the Profile of Success, always leads to a great deal of discussion and sometimes a great deal of disagreement. As one recruiter I know says, “We always start off looking for Jesus Christ with an […]
Overestimating Pilot Error
When attempting to explain someone else’s behavior, especially undesirable behavior, people very often attribute more control to that individual than he/she really has in the situation. In other words, people tend to over attribute a person’s actions to “pilot error.” This is a term that often is used when an airplane crash is believed to be […]