Not many people know that I was an Instructor during my National Service days. For the uninitiated, all able-bodied males in Singapore have to serve in the armed forces (The Army, Navy or the Police) for at least 2 years usually before they head-off to college or university. As a senior instructor in the [...]
In an HBR article titled The Big Idea: 21st-Century Talent Spotting, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, senior advisor at global executives search firm Egon Zehnder and the author of “It’s Not the How or the What but the Who???, says the first era of talent spotting leaders were done based on their physical abilities. For instance, if you wanted [...]
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 [...]
Some have asked me why personality is important when hiring. Some have even questioned if personality is an important consideration when hiring. I always answer with this question: “What type of persons do you like to work with?" And the answers I usually get include some or all of the following: “Someone who is helpful" “People [...]
Do you perform Character Reference checks on your job candidates? Not too long ago, an ex-colleague of mine asked me to be his character referee for a job he was applying for. I agreed as I always have. Several days later, the recruitment firm that was representing my ex-colleague called me up for the “reference check". [...]
I recently came across an interesting article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) in which the author proposes personality assessments for Board Members. The author of the article writes: "the President of the New York Federal Reserve reportedly declared that the nation’s largest financial services companies suffered from institutional pathologies at the very top. Personality testing for [...]
Are you a Narcissist? Perhaps not. But I’m sure many of us have worked with or encountered narcissists sometime during our working life. Perhaps you may be working with one today. It doesn’t matter if that person is your boss, your subordinate or your peer. Working with a narcissist can be extreme stressful and could seriously [...]
Have you heard of Stay Interviews? A Stay Interview is the exact opposite of an Exit Interview. A Stay Interview is defined as a regular conversation with your employees so as to maximise the “stay rate" of your employees. In other words, it is to miminise employee attrition rates. So instead of waiting to talk to [...]
On 6th November 2014, I declared the old adage "Hire for Attitude but not aptitude" OFFICIALLY DEAD! I told a packed room of senior leadership and HR professionals that this old adage was no longer valid! And not a single person in the room objected to what I said. I spoke on the topic of Acquiring [...]
So far we have covered Culture, Attitude and Aptitude in our previous articles. The final piece of the CAAP® Foundation is PERSONALITY. If you missed the previous articles, read them here: Culture, Attitude, Aptitude So what is Personality and why is it so important? According to Peter Gray, a professor of psychology with the Boston College, [...]
