Leaders get promoted because they were good at being part of a team, getting lots of work done. The Leader’s job is not to do the work of the whole team, but rather to manage the team to do more, good, work.
Continue readingCategory Archives: People management
Too busy to talk
Consultants love a 2×2 matrix. We all know that for sanity and serenity we should avoid the box Urgent and Important. It means we have to do that right now! Sometimes, things happen outside our ability to plan, outside our strategic scan of the horizon.
Continue readingSituation Contingent Leadership
This may come as a shock. Leadership is not about you. It’s about the people you lead.
Continue readingOne in four employees
Remote working, during the pandemic of the early 2020s, created an opportunity to work from home for many. For those of us whose work consists of pressing keys, the obstacles to working from home were technical. IT security, hardware, a space to work and the peace to work. Many managers regretted the loss of scrutiny during this time. They worried that people wouldn’t do their hours, that people would be slack. The video lays out the differences between these two extremes.
Continue readingManaging your Star Performers
Do you have a group of Star Performers – the high flyers destined for bigger things? What about the others? How do you treat them? Enthuse them?
Continue readingTesting, Testing, Testing
Both World Wars drove the development of psychological testing and it has not stopped since. The tests can be split into three broad categories: Aptitude, Skills and Personality.
Continue readingEmployee Engagement Surveys
Do you do Employee Engagement surveys? Why? What do you do with the Survey results?
Continue readingLEAN IMPLEMENTATION
As a Manufacturing Advisory Service Champion (MAS), I had the delight of seeing various implementations. There was no doubt that the experts were very competent at Lean. Unfortunately they forgot that there isn’t a good process that people can’t make worse, or a bad process that people can’t make work. I watched a competent Lean implementation in a large SME, and every visit I asked the same question: Are your people involved in this?
Continue readingSourcing Senior Talent
How do you source more talent? You could grow you own, but then you should have started that years ago. You can poach from a competitor, and start a salary war. You could more tightly and less strictly, specify the skills needed. You could look at the people under your nose. Enjoy the video!
Continue readingWhy won’t anyone think about what they’re doing?
This question arose from a meeting today. The small and successful business is looking to replace a Customer Service person, after many years of excellent employment. But how do you find someone who knows what questions to ask to be able to do the right thing for the Client?
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