It was 1986. It was a cold January morning at Cape Canaveral. Engineers had been frantically preparing for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. On board the space shuttle were 7 crew members. Just as in all previous launches, safety checks had to be done prior to the launch of the mission to ensure the [...]
Here are some articles and blogs I came across recently that you might find interesting. All consolidated here for your convenience. Read them at your own convenience. Enjoy! How Not to Choose a Manager This is an interesting piece that highlights some common assumptions we make when deciding who to promote or hire as manager. 3 [...]
Why do most teams and organisations under-perform? Even if you hired all the right people into your team, your team might still under-perform because of one reason. When I say “under-perform??? I mean the teams or organisations fail to perform their best beyond what they are already doing today. So what is the primary reason that [...]
It does not matter if you are a team manager leading a team of 5 or a Division Manager leading an organization of 500, the challenges with team and people management are fundamentally the same. It does not get any easier with a smaller team. All you require is a couple of difficult employees or staff [...]
Yes, Purple Cow. This was a concept popularized by Seth Godin in his bestselling book Purple Cow. The basic concept of the Purple Cow is to stand out and be insanely different from your competitors. According to Godin, the world is full of mediocrity and if you want to be successful in business or in your [...]
This article first appeared in the the HR & Education Section of Singapore Business Review portal on 20 March 2013. http://sbr.com.sg/hr-education/commentary/top-3-secrets-high-performance-teams Productivity is a big buzzword everywhere today, and companies are always looking for ways to increase productivity through their employees. One effective way to increase productivity is for employers to look at creating high performance [...]
A lot has been said about Leadership. Tons of books have been written about Leadership and everyone has an opinion about what effective Leadership is all about. All you need to do is Google “Leadership??? and look at the number of hits Google returns. Every time I ask this question: “What is effective leadership???? I get [...]
Do you know the true cost of a bad hire? Unfortunately, most of us don’t. If you did a search on Google, you will find all kinds of estimates and suggestions regarding the negative financial impact of bad hires. Some have even suggested that the cost of a bad hire can be up to twenty times [...]
(Click on image to enlarge) Ironically, these statistics don’t lie! (No pun intended) In fact the statistics above underscores the critical importance of effective interviewing. Let’s face it. Many job seekers will not stop at anything – including lying through their teeth during interviews – just to get that job you are offering. With 57% of [...]
Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is consistently ranked as one of the world’s wealthiest, successful and most influential persons. One of Buffett’s famous quotes is “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing". Buffett should know it better than anyone else. He has seen his wealth skyrocket from practically nothing back in the 1950’s [...]
