At the recent SHRM Global HR conference, W. Chan Kim spoke as a keynote. He is the co-author of The Blue Ocean Strategy . This is an interesting book that I read a few years ago. Its subtitle was very interesting to me, too, How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. That will be fodder for another blog some day. read more »

I have lots of gadgets. I get a lot of them because my husband figures them out or likes them and they become a part of our lives. He picks out good gadgets for me. The DVR and my iPods (I have more then one now) have been my favorite. I have a new one on the favorites list. For Christmas I received the Amazon Kindle. This is the electronic book by Amazon. It is FANTASTIC! read more »

Hate writing job descriptions for a new position? I’d like to share a few tips that should make your entire team happy. When you know you can hire a new person, or as you build a case for hiring a new person, check out the team that will be working with that person. Talk to them about what they do best and what they have to do that zaps their energy. Then create the new position that includes some of those energy zappers, freeing your star performers, and hire someone who loves to do those things. (It takes all kinds, remember.) read more »

At the fantastic conference “Forbes Executive Women’s Forum,” Deloitte’s Chairman and CEO, Sharon Allen, discussed the firm’s ability to let people “Dial Back” on their current work schedule without destroying their career. This allows employees to cut their hours, possibly to even a project based arrangement, and then, when they are ready, come back swinging without the stigma of taking time off. read more »

Think for a minute about your company’s hierarchy. When you look at the very successful relationships of who reports to whom, you’ll likely find something that appears commonsense after you identify it – but not highly pondered when an organization builds its structure. Successful relationships between managers and their teams can be tied to the similarity in the timeline scope of their goals and objectives.

The question to ask is: what is the thought horizon, or goal horizon, for each manager and team member? In other words, if the boss’ objectives, goals, even compensation, are tied to events and plans that take a year to achieve, can they effectively relate and manage people whose objective is that their goals be met by the end of the day? For example, should the bank branch manager manage the teller whose primary measurement is a balanced till at closing time? read more »