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Category Archives: Human Resources

Roundup: Catching up

Friday, November 6, 2009

A lot of interesting stuff has been going on over the past few weeks. A good bit of it touches on themes we’ll likely be visiting, here, soon, so let’s take a closer look at some of it . . .

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What are those, exactly – geniuses? Are they just super-intelligent people? As we noted yesterday, there is a strong inclination to presume so. Indeed, it is common to rate smartness as ascending by degree from basic common sense, to intelligence, to genius. But we’ve seen before that genius may not be all it’s cracked up to be . . .

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You think you’re so smart

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Of course, we all do think we’re smart, don’t we? Certainly, those who challenge us on the matter think they are. And, as we’ve seen, often the least radiant among us think they shine the brightest of all. But what if we really are smart . . .

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Roundup: Capitalism and rampant self-interest

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

How do we run our businesses, and how do they interact with their markets? A recent WSJ editorial cartoon has a manager reporting back to the CEO on the results of a new initiative: “Productivity is up twenty percent since your picture was installed on our screen savers.” And Murat Yetkin, a Turkish columnist, yesterday made an interesting comparison between the fall in 1991 of an “oppressive socialism unconcerned with people” and what he sees as the collapse today of “a spoiled, aggressive type of capitalism which ignores human concerns.” Is that what’s going on? Are we just swinging from one extreme to the other in a competition over how best to exploit workers and consumers? Let’s take a brief look . . .

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The apprentice

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

The apprenticeship model of management – or leadership – development is a deeply perceptive approach to this vital topic that is most effectively championed by Wally Bock, of Three Star Leadership. The basic premise is that leadership cannot be learned in school, but must be practiced on the job. The wise organization will provide mechanisms – from career path assignments to mentoring programs – to facilitate this. That single insight by itself can save organizations a tremendous amount of aggravation in infusing truly effective and robust talent development systems into their structures. And it need not start only at the entry level for management . . .

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The audition

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

It may seem obvious that it is important to understand what skill sets you need in a job before you start looking for someone to fill it. And, indeed, many Human Resource departments know precisely what is required in closely defined line positions. From sales to production or service fulfilment, these criteria are often quite clear, and the process of discovering who has or can develop them can be just as clear. Unfortunately, the situation is more muddled for managers . . .

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The mustang

Friday, March 28, 2008

Consider a civilian automobile factory, for example, in which someone moves up from being a blue-collar front-line factory employee – and, perhaps through some of the the supervisor levels, as well – to ultimately enter the white-collared ranks of management. There are definitely advantages to this pipeline. For one thing, such managers are often able to detect the sorts of orders coming down from on high that are destined to be greeted, by those who are to carry them out, with amused bafflement – almost never a productivity enhancer. Sometimes they can do something about those, and this usually works to the benefit of both the recipients and the issuers. But there is another interesting aspect to this . . .

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