More and more is written about the need to overhaul performance management, the process companies use to determine who gets more money, who gets promoted, and who is let go.  A colleague of mine at one of the top companies recently said his group was looking at throwing out most established and mature talent…

David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, asks every employee he encounters four questions:   How do you make a difference? What improvement idea are you working on? When did you last get coaching from your boss? Who is the enemy?  The first question seeks individual alignment with corporate strategy. The second emphasizes continuous and constant…

In our research, we defined self-awareness as “The ability to have self-confidence, reliance, and insight, as well as social and cultural awareness.” Another way to look at it is the difference between how people actually behave (revealed preferences) and how they say they behave (declared preferences). Receiving data that supports one’s view may create a confidence…

  GE invests $1 Billion a year in corporate training and education.  Wow. However, along with that investment comes an expectation for performance.  Before that, there is rigor in selecting great people for the company. CEO Jeff Immelt said that he is paranoid about keeping up-to-date with attracting and retaining great leaders around the world….

On a recent trip to Toronto, I drove 2 hours to see the iconic Niagara Falls. I learned that the erosion rate is 1 foot every 10 years; however, it used to be 3 feet each year. They have diverted water to power generation stations, without impeding the majestic wonder of the volume of water…

MOOC is an acronym for Massive Open Online Courses. This is the hottest topic of universities, as they provide broader access to top professors. Some courses have attracted 100,000 users, most from overseas, who pay nothing to access. Coursera, a for-profit entity, is comprised of 62 universities including Princeton, Stanford, UPenn, and University of Michigan. edX,…

  While some people are characterized as “lucky,” I propose that they are better at preparing for opportunities and then executing. Everyone has blind spots, as do businesses. The key is discovering what you do not know so that you can reduce these blind spots.  This again is preparation. No one knows everything; however, with…

85% of US patents do not turn into profitable ideas. It is not the idea/technology/product quality; instead it is that the intended decision maker does not understand the solution’s benefits. So many times, when we attempt to sell our innovation, we focus on the product. Instead, we should focus on the solutions’ benefit quality. If…

This book by Dave Logan & John King discusses leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization. Teams are unified through five stages, and each stage has a unique set of leverage points:  Despair Hostility Apathetic Victim Lone Warrior How we teach at universities….knowledge is equated with power Employee seeks outside stimulation not provided at…

I recently read a quote from Victor Frankl that states, “The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is.”  Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying, “[The] true measure of a person is how he treats someone who can do…