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Golden parachutes reward risk or moral hazard?

Odds & Sods September 1, 2010

The July 31st Economist wrote an article called The wages of failure and brought an interesting perspective to those CEOs dismissed because or PR disasters.  Do golden parachutes reward bad leadership or reward risk crucial for a firm to rebuild, re-imagine, and compete within capitalism? The article acknowledges the outrage many have to folks like [...]

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9 views into your organization with a project management lens

Portfolio Planning August 30, 2010

Project management offers a way to breath new life into your organization’s competitive and operational advantage, but why is project management seemingly stuck in engineering or scientific theory? Project management may look like an engineering, top-down control process, but project management is less process and more a discipline:  like accounting.  Anyone familiar with accounting knows asset [...]

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2 priorities for competitive advantage

Organization Behavior August 26, 2010

In addition to sales and finance, there are 2 complimentary organization priorities that leaders should focus on to achieve and sustain excellence: understand motivation deliver projects in a routine manner Organizations can stake out a competitive advantage by doing things cheaper or doing things better.  Motivation and project management are 2 ways an organization can [...]

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Create firm value, build talent during a downturn

Talent Management August 23, 2010

Where many leaders chose to cut staff, cut talent management programs or to cut both to reduce costs, a Deloitte Consulting year-long study of 1,800 executives at large companies around the globe found retaining key employees, increasing the hiring of rivals’ future stars, and increasing programs to develop high-potential employees and corporate leaders are strategies to [...]

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Discounted risk is human capital risk

Portfolio Planning August 18, 2010

Many firms admit they rely on the quality of entrepreneur to determine their funding decision, but rarely is this “quality” represented in a measurable, comparable assessment, or at least as measurable as weighted average cost of capital, discounted cash flow, capital asset pricing model, risk-adjusted rate of return, and other abstract financial models. Human capital [...]

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The intervention as organizational rehab

Organization Behavior August 14, 2010

When organizations promote star talent, I’ve never once heard about their star’s organization development technical skills as key to their promotion. When I read a press release for a C-level hiring, promotion, or bonus being paid out, I’ve never once seen organization development highlighted as a key to their success. When building job roles, descriptions, [...]

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Evaluating risk: financial models versus competency models, part 1

Portfolio Planning August 12, 2010

We make models to get an idea, on a small-scale, of what might happen on a large-scale.  Models help identify risk and attempt to predict outcomes.  Many use models to then run scenarios or alternatives to identify what could or should be.  Models then become a map for many management discussions as models provide options [...]

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Business as a foreign language for HR professionals

Organization Behavior August 9, 2010

Today in Human Resource Executive Online I eagerly read a post titled Is Business a Foreign Language for HR? Anyone who has seen or read my blogs knows, I’m pretty insistent that HR (organization development, organization behavior, training, diversity, compensation) does not deserve a place at the table until HR understands the essentials of business:  finance [...]

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A key to why so many companies blow it in social media?

Marketing August 4, 2010

Last week I posted Marketing interruption still trumps engagement, really? I quoted global brand strategist Jonathan Salem Baskin’s Advertising Age blog where he presents his case that brands have always had it correct: Brands always had conversations with consumers, whether via broadcast TV or chiseled on clay tablets. The rules have also been consistent over [...]

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Organizations don’t change, people change

Organization Behavior July 30, 2010

Organizations are, quite simply, made up of social interactions:  groups of people.  Organizations will not change if people do not change.  There is no such thing as organization change, they don’t change, people change. All change:  transformation, business process reengineering, technology implementation, mergers & acquisitions, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning or, if you [...]

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Marketing interruption still trumps engagement, really?

Marketing July 28, 2010

Great post on Advertising Age website titled:  Why Interruption Still Trumps Engagement. The key to the blog is the closing and I think it is worth your read because it gives yet another view of social media’s critics. The author, Mr. Jonathan Salem Baskin, states the social-media revolution is based on 3 assumptions: ads aren’t [...]

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Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

Organization Behavior July 23, 2010

An intervention. Interventions are principal learning processes in the “action” stage of organization development (OD)*. An intervention is what people outside organization development [namely the majority of all professionals are NOT in organization development] call a project or transformation.   The reason a professional might call for an intervention, or project, can easily be identified as [...]

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Organization development is business growth

Organization Behavior July 19, 2010

Organization development has yet to earn a role in all organizations.  Only the most progressive companies even have an organization development role, staff, department, or group.  The challenge to organization development success is that it is hard to find a linear trajectory for success.  Organization development may have clear goals, but the reality, there is rarely [...]

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Media’s two tribes – Rupert Murdoch’s Wall

Odds & Sods July 16, 2010

In a follow up to July 12th’s post Media’s two tribes – charging for content Atlantic Monthly’s James Fallows reports The Times of London has placed their bet you will love their headlines so much you will pay for the opportunity to read the article. Click on any link within The Times and you are [...]

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Media’s two tribes – charging for content

Marketing July 12, 2010

The lines are drawn:  charge for content, give content for free. In Media’s two tribes The Economist breaks down the thought of charging for premium content over giving content away.  In this article from The Economist, read about what 2 UK media outlets weigh in their chosen strategy as well a look at some of the [...]

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Venture Capital and the descent into irrelevance

Portfolio Planning July 9, 2010

The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Elemental finance: you assume the amount of risk suitable for an expected payoff. You assume bigger risk and its bigger payoff with the full caveat that there is an equally big downside loss that could happen. Invest in a money market and get slow, steady, decimal-point-% returns; [...]

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This social media fad will ruin organization development

Talent Management July 8, 2010

What does the social media fad have to do with business?  How is this social media fad related to organizational development (organization development)?  Are you asking yourself if you really need to bother learning about social media? I’ve heard it all too often and continue to cringe hearing about the lack of effort OD and [...]

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How do you measure innovation: tax revenue

Odds & Sods July 6, 2010

When we talk innovation, innovation is usually connected to a firm or a region.  Interest with innovation at the regional level is usually couched in economic development. So, what is economic development other than politicians, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and glad-handing photo-ops?  Why are so many incentive packages being offered?  Tax havens being offered?  Tax holidays?  Who [...]

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The maven or the laggard – Clive Thompson’s view

Marketing July 3, 2010

Those early market adopters, the techno-weenies that stood in line for the iPhone 4, they represent only about 13.5% of the potential market.  It seems many consumer and technology products look for the big Apple splash as a sign of cool, hip, and success.  These early adopters are people who play on the what is [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 2

Portfolio Planning July 2, 2010

The key for organizations to grow and to thrive relies on how to manage projects and how to manage projects for organization success becomes an industry competitive advantage.  But why do so many projects fail? Is it lack of preparation? Is it lack of communication? Is it lack of commitment? No, those are symptoms. Projects [...]

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Can you engineer regional innovation clusters?

Odds & Sods July 1, 2010

Innovation comes from opportunity and diversity.  Can diversity and innovation be engineered?  We all see the newspaper pronouncements of local, state, or federal tax incentives to draw investors and to build innovation clusters . The key for clusters to succeed is for clusters to cultivate of high, value-add industries and supply chains as well as [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; impact analysis template

Portfolio Planning June 29, 2010

On my previous post, Scope or:  how to manage projects for organization success that included the eBook Scope – Kills Bad Breath and Kills Projects [link below] I introduced the importance of scope before a project launches.  The numbers on project failure are sobering:  90% of all projects fail and this post follows up both the [...]

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Human capital risk, now that’s real risk

Portfolio Planning June 24, 2010

You commonly hear an equity firm or VC partner claim, we invest in the people and when it comes to costs, human capital usually represents nearly 70% of all operating costs.  Human capital risk is the real risk, but most investment firms don’t focus investment decisions and deal valuation not on quantifying the people or [...]

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Too many links, a pause for delinkification

Marketing June 21, 2010

A couple recent articles around author Nicholas Carr’s writings and thoughts present a negative symptom of hyperlinks, mainly, reduced reader comprehension.  Too many hyperlinks or links negatively effect our ability to process and understand.  Mr. Carr’s call?  Delinkification. Is hyperlinking a hyper waste?  Search engine optimization (SEO) aside, for the moment, the whole goal of [...]

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It’s true, your boss is a psychopath – UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE?

Odds & Sods June 20, 2010

From the weekly, always insightful, Boston Globe Ideas Section, I give you this week’s UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE [their capitalization, not mine].  This section usually provides a hodge-podge of nuggets from the social sciences.  This week’s lead: It’s true, your boss is a psychopath Watching the news some days, you’d think a lot of companies were run by [...]

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Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 1

Portfolio Planning June 18, 2010

Organizations rely on projects to remain competitive.  Projects are the way organizations deliver and realize their executive strategies.  The ability to deliver a project is the ability to compete.  Scope kills projects and projects that are not delivered kill organizations.  Scope is one of the most important ways to manage project success.  And when projects [...]

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The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered – 3 Views

Talent Management June 14, 2010

This morning I read something that made me hold my, very hot, coffee in my mouth longer than I expected as I processed their information. Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post reports “Disturbing Job Ads:  The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered“. Ms. Bassett comments on a job board search for quality engineer that notes states:  [...]

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Low risk, low return human resources

Talent Management June 11, 2010

My 11-odd-years in business and talent management consulting [the other 9 in marketing] have shown a few disturbing trends that I see from most poorly-run companies.  These type of organizations, across all industries, ascribe to, what they believe is a low risk strategy, but in reality it is a low return strategy for human resources: [...]

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5 reasons human resources hurt consumer brands

Marketing June 9, 2010

Every person connected to your organization is in sales and marketing.  Each interaction anyone connected to your company, your government agency, your non-profit, or your university has with the anyone is an interaction with your brand. Every interaction with a vendor, supplier, or competitor is as important as an interaction with a potential customer.  At [...]

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The Great Spare-Time Revolution

Odds & Sods June 4, 2010

Free time, spare time, where to find any time? Here’s a staggering thought for those who feel they have no spare time:  it is estimated all the Wikipedia articles, edits, and arguments about articles and edits represent around 100 million hours of human labor.  100 million hours!  Where do people find that time for a [...]

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A View: Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected

Odds & Sods May 29, 2010

In the latest issue of Wired magazine Steven Levy’s article Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected is a good over view of what it might take to push the tablet into a new category of computing. Some quick hits: Tablets must be cheap enough to lose ~$149 [or cheap enough when you drop it/spill coffee/spill [...]

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More workers voluntarily quit their jobs

Talent Management May 27, 2010

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal presented More Workers Are Considering Quitting Their Jobs This is the boomerang effect of companies cutting payroll costs to the bone, redistributing work to the smaller remaining staff, and leaving an environment where workers feel “lucky to even have a job”.  This leaves little left for motivation and the result of [...]

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Embrace geolocation, Foursquare, and social media sensory overload

Marketing May 26, 2010

This article, Tech Edge: Hollow Point | Fast Company, offers a view on the latest, greatest–stop me if you’ve heard this before–social media phenomenon around “checking in” through Foursquare. I have to agree with this article that “checking in can be fun, useful, and even indispensable, but only in certain contexts”. However, I’m not sure checkin in [...]

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Isn’t it enough that I told them?

Talent Management May 24, 2010

Does your organization communicate or inform. Does your leader invite conversation at the table?  Does your leader offer an environment of dialogue? If the answer is no, how does that affect organization motivation throughout all levels? Do your project leaders and project sponsors sit around the table and audit the failed implementations with comments like [...]

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Talent score report brought to you by your credit agency

Talent Management May 23, 2010

How’s your credit score? Perhaps I could ask another way, how accurate is your credit score? Perhaps another way, how accurate is your credit score in assessing your talent, management, or leadership potential? According to Equifax, their internal assessments “directly aligns human resources to overall organization goals” and you can read about it here:  Talent [...]

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All hail the solution to the micromanager

Organization Behavior May 19, 2010

How to handle the micromanager? Raise your hand if you love working for a micromanager? Are you a micromanager, you can raise your hand if you are, no one else knows. Micromanagers grind work to a halt. If there is no confidence in work getting done, the fish rots from the head down: the management [...]

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Sales, finance, and human resources, only room for 2 at the table

Portfolio Planning April 30, 2010

There are really on 3 swim lanes, or functions, in business. Every business function is subordinated to either; sales, finance, or human resources. How can HR possibly have any impact when business is all about sales, brining in the money and finance making the best use of the money?

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The NFL draft and your company recruiting strategy (round 2)

Talent Management April 23, 2010

The NFL draft reveals all things wrong with talent acquisition and recruiting. Looking at how the an NFL team drafts provides terrific insight into what you and your company can improve upon. I wrote in the last blog, The NFL draft and your company recruiting strategy round 1, a sample list of the assessments an [...]

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The NFL draft and your company recruiting strategy

Talent Management April 21, 2010

There is little doubt each National Football League (NFL) team spends an extraordinary amount of resources preparing to draft their number 1 pick. An NFL team’s number one pick is intended to be the team’s future star and this year the NFL draft has changed their format to glorify the first round draft even more. [...]

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Human capital assessments – the symptom or the disease

Organization Behavior April 14, 2010

The drive to evaluate operations and to contain costs is mistakenly applied as an operational issue across the board.  Too often human capital assessments are lumped into the systems theory world of process and become a technical asset for management’s diagnostic view for cuts.  The result becomes an assessment or evaluation process that is really [...]

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Tips to turn your blog into a pod(cast) into revenue

Marketing April 7, 2010

Tired of trying to reach a critical mass with your blogs? Tired of sitting in front of the blank compute screen trying to channel your Ernest Hemingway?  What about podcasting?  Podcasting is one great alternative to reach millions. “Podcasting?” You say?  ”To reach more people than my written blog?” You say?  It is true.  And [...]

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Change management bottom up or top down

Organization Behavior April 4, 2010

Classic change theory: leadership drives change; leadership must be committed for change to work. Seems to make sense, but in reality leadership is irrelevant. The organization’s ability to change is dictated by the operational units and employees, not leadership. The reality: culture eats strategy for lunch. Your workers dictate change and strategy. Leadership doesn’t drive [...]

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How to launch and manage your social media identity – the slides

Marketing April 1, 2010

Last Thursday night I gave a presentation to the Massachusetts Bay Organization Development Learning Group on how to grab hold of the marketing world that’s spinning around us and get a tangible handle on how to launch and manage a social media identity. Both the deck presentation and some recommended resources are available above and below. [...]

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Human capital portfolio management and simple math

Portfolio Planning March 23, 2010

A venture’s viability really comes down to a bet on a team to deliver.  It is the interpersonal process where venture performance is most impacted. Modern portfolio theory allows investors to maximize return and minimize risk.  The goal is to estimate both the expected risks and returns, as measured statistically, as an accumulation of investments.  Why [...]

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Innovation Boston and Budapest, or Dirty Water and the Blue Danube

Portfolio Planning March 19, 2010

13 years offers a great opportunity to revisit most relationships.  At first blush, Boston and Budapest seem to have little to share or offer each in a study on innovation.  However, both share unique innovation environments that reveal themselves upon further review. I am a Boston native and, after my undergraduate degree from Berklee College of Music, Boston [...]

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Risk is an unnecessary (p)art of the deal

Portfolio Planning March 4, 2010

To identify where risk is a real part of the investment deal you will commonly hear an equity firm or VC partner claim, we invest in the people.  When it comes to costs, human capital usually represents nearly 70% of all operating costs, but most investment firms focus investment decisions and deal valuation not on [...]

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Googled again: cost of culture is innovation

Talent Management February 18, 2010

What, really, is the cost of culture? Is culture tangible to business bottom line or is culture an intangible behavioral science term only useful for dissertations? Culture, innovation, values, diversity, opinion. Related? Perhaps to each other, but related to the bottom line? I read a recent blog on Fistful of Talent had me revisit diversity’s [...]

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Googled: the cost of culture

Talent Management February 15, 2010

What does culture really costs a company? Is it worth investing in culture or passively letting culture form, also known as luck-based leadership? What is the cost of culture, in profit or loss? I found this one company a great example: Maternity leave: 5 months full salary Paternity leave: 7 weeks full salary Plus new [...]

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The cost of culture, a 50% turnover of the Fortune 500

Organization Behavior February 4, 2010

What is the cost of culture? Why is it even worth identifying corporate culture? Let’s start with what is culture. Culture is the values, norms, assumptions, expectations, and definitions that characterize organizations or affectionately known as: how things are done around here Culture is often a holdover from the founder(s) actions; sometimes developed consciously by [...]

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