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"Experience the power of unlimited knowledge flowing through your enterprise each and every day" |
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Economic Resilience Zone: Resources Mega-Maps (under development)
Economic Resilience Zone: Resources Mega-Maps (under development) |
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Events: 11 August 2011, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD: “EMP: Threat and Opportunity” 8 June 2011, The Tower Club, Tyson's Corner, VA: “It doesn’t do you any good if you’re open for business and your customers and suppliers aren’t”
Recommended reading:
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CEOS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS! (PART I) by Jeff Lesher, Certified Master Coach On the heels of Carly Fiorina informing American voters that no one on either the Republican or Democratic Party‘s presidential ticket has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard…but “that’s not what [they are] running for”…, you’d think that very little would surprise me when it comes to CEO gaffes. You’d be wrong. In the September 2008 issue of Inc. Magazine, which features the “Inc. 500” entrepreneurial businesses, several CEO’s are quoted about their leadership styles and their favorite interview questions. Several of the surveyed CEOs favor interview questions to “get the right person” that are much more likely to lose them their preferred candidate. As for their leadership styles, there’s hope, but still a significant evolutionary gap between what these CEOs needed to do individually to launch a business, and what they need to do now to grow and sustain their enterprise. Ms. Fiorina may be on to something here: there’s a lot you need to know to run a successful company. In terms of selecting and leading the right talent for one’s business, here are some things I like my clients to know and do in order to achieve their desired results. When I gauge the sustainability of an organization’s performance or its ability to grow, I assess the alignment between what the organization desires to be about and its de facto processes. Is the organization’s performance more a function of design or chance? Let’s take a peek at what chance looks like when attempting to consistently identify and attract the best talent for your organization. Here’s a sample of the CEO responses to Inc. Magazine’s CEO Survey called “The Hot Seat.” The blurb prefacing the responses reads, “Finding smart employees is the top challenge for any fast-growing company. Here are some questions Inc. 500 CEOs ask to get the right person:
I could go on…but let’s just focus on these as they represent two important opportunities that should be executed better. The over-arching message I have for folks who ask questions like these is to focus on the skills that define success in your organization and ask questions about these skills in a clear and specific manner. There simply is no disputing that the research and experience on what works best to vet AND attract talent to your company over the last 40 years shows that clearly job-related questions asked as part of a professional interview process give you the best chance to select the best candidates and to get them to say “yes” to your offer of employment. And, oh by the way, they tend to stay longer and be more loyal when hired in this fashion. The tactful analysis of the first two questions is that, although their intention may be to ask about specific skills, I can’t tell what those might be. The candid answer is that they are bull---t, pop psychology questions that lack face validity and are unlikely to be assessed objectively by even one interviewer much less several. The third item is about integrity, which is an important area of skill in many organizations and one not easily taught to or learned by adults. But it is incumbent on the organization, not the candidate, to define this skill in their context and ask a question or questions of their candidates about when and how they have demonstrated this skill. The lesson here is that clarity and candor really work and they out-sell the heck out of “clever.”
 Jeff ©2008 Applied Knowledge Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. |
Copyright © 2010 Appliied Knowledge Sciences, Inc. info@aksciences.comBoyce, VA USA; Manama, BahrainLast modified: 07/19/11 |
