Being in the final stages of strategic planning right now with my company (following the establishment of a Vision statement last year) I just can’t leave Derrick’s post alone. He is absolutely correct with his assumption that many “visioning” exercises are empty of real meaning or impact. As any good business consultant will tell you, execution of the vision and the strategy is a lot harder than crafting the words. Most companies do not follow through and get any real value. It sounds like that’s what Derrick experienced (as I have in several previous lives). But, for a company like ours that is transitioning from a manufacturing mentality to become… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s A Dry Cold
From Yahoo News today: It lived up to its name: The temperature in International Falls fell to 40 below zero Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the “Icebox of the Nation.” The previous record low for Feb. 11 in International Falls was 37 below, set in 1967, said meteorologist Mike Stewart at the weather service in Duluth. The temperature also fell to 40 below in Embarrass, 80 miles southeast of International Falls. That’s just one degree above the all-time record in Minneapolis, 250 miles to the south, that was set in January 1888, the weather service said. I can… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat’s Hot In A Recession
More stories are appearing that address “recession-proof jobs” in response to our slowing economy. Timely titles for sure, but one position is always recession-proof and that is sales; specifically successful sales. Case in point, Job Hunting in a Recession from The Wall Street Journal: Target critical posts. “The safest jobs are the ones selling to or servicing customers,” says Gary Rich, president of Rich Leadership, an executive advisory firm in Pound Ridge, N.Y. “When things get tight, it’s all about who’s going to drive the top line and who’s going to service that.” Less durable jobs are those in human resources, public relations, finance, strategic planning and other nonvital business… Read More
Continue ReadingVision Statement vs. Leadership
Color me skeptical, but I am just not a fan of vision statements, mission statements, company statements and whatever else is the latest iteration. I prefer P&L statements. I could be wrong on this so I’ll provide an article from BusinessWeek.com titled Vision Decisions. The opening graph: Feeling the pressure to prove they have what former President George H. W. Bush famously termed “the vision thing,” they drag their staffs through formal visioning sessions. The resulting empty exercises yield “vision statements” to which employees periodically genuflect, but they have no operative meaning. The net result is anti-inspirational. The purpose of vision, after all, is to inspire: vision provides motivation through… Read More
Continue Reading7 Signs You Are A Bad Boss
I thought the article was going to be anecdotal and humorous, but it is actually quite insightful. Inc.com offers this article – The Office: The Bad and the Ugly – which is well reasoned. Here are the 7: 1. The staff has developed guidelines for dealing with you and quietly passes them to new employees. “Never suggest that there might be another way of doing something,” they might say. Or “Act self-deprecating so he doesn’t feel threatened.” 2. You have one or two fanatical acolytes. Yes, such devotion may be a testament to your fabulousness. But often when a boss is perceived as universally loathed, the staff opportunist offers herself… Read More
Continue ReadingA Recruiter’s Role
HR departments and third-party recruiters often go at it with hammers and tongs since each side thinks the other side is…problematic. You don’t need an organizational development specialist to tell you this is not a healthy business relationship. BusinessWeek.com approaches this topic in How Recruiters and HR Can Work Together. The article starts with a tactical point that we encounter during every negotiation: In my experience, the greatest service a third-party search partner provides to the organization, besides the strength of his or her candidate database and relationships, is the intermediary role a search pro performs during offer negotiation. I pride myself on good listening and negotiating skills, but if… Read More
Continue ReadingResults Orientation In Sales
One of the most important aptitudes in sales is a proper results orientation. The key word is “results.” Oftentimes we encounter sales managers who place their focus on activity orientation instead of results. An example would be a salesperson who has a furiousness to their work…almost like their hair is on fire. But no significant deals seem to close despite their frantic pace. I used to work for a sales manager who would describe those salespeople as a horse-drawn wagon. There would always be a cloud of dust around them, but at the end of the day, the wagon hadn’t moved. Salespeople who lack a strong results orientation are often… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Reason Behind Ruts
Totally fascinating post from Steve Clark titled Why is change so difficult? The human organism is resistant to change. The body tries to maintain what physiologists call homeostasis. This is the physical state of equilibrium or status quo. The body is designed to operate in a very narrow range of physiological processes. The brain is no different. And now for the explanation: Change creates psychological stress. Change engages the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part of the brain that is responsible for judgment, planning and decision making. The prefrontal cortex is like RAM memory in a PC. It is fast and agile, able to hold multiple threads of logic at once… Read More
Continue Reading9 Common Hiring Mistakes
A perfect list from HR Chally Group via Recruiting.com: Relying on an Interview to Evaluate a Candidate Using Successful People as a Model Setting Too Many Criteria Evaluating “Personality” instead of Job Skills Using Yourself as an Example Not Using Statistically Validated Testing Not Researching the Reasons People Have Failed in a Job Relying on General “Good Guy” Criteria Not Doing A Careful Background Reference Check They are all excellent points and ones that we have experienced first-hand with our customers. Pay special attention to numbers 1, 2 and 5. Those are the most common mistakes we see in our daily experience.
Continue ReadingMonologue Communication
JustSell.com’s latest newsletter has a quick-hit tidbit that caught my eye: Be careful to avoid working to get the needs of your paying customers and highly qualified prospects “off your plate”. These are the people who deserve your attention and time. Technology has allowed us to communicate by monologue – in one direction – sending or leaving a message in the written form (email) or oral form (voice mail) and then moving on until we receive a response. This can cause us to get lazy in our service efforts – creating gaps of needed care and attention and subsequently weakening relationships that might otherwise build stronger barriers to competitive entry.… Read More
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