Tagged: corporate culture

Transforming the lowly employee handbook: Design for communication not litigation

Transforming the lowly employee handbook: Design for communication not litigation

 

Give me about three minutes with your employee handbook and I can tell you how it was created.  The most popular way: cut and paste.  Human Resource managers retrieve handbooks from their former employers, borrow a few examples from colleagues and extract the sections that apply to their firm.  The results:  generic choppy language, uneven flow from section to section and missing pieces that didn’t happen to appear in any of the examples they selected.  The second most […]

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Making the Invisible Visible – 7 Levels of Organizational Consciousness

Making the Invisible Visible – 7 Levels of Organizational Consciousness

Why do some organizations continually fight the same internal battles, struggling with productivity and financial viability while other companies forge ahead to new levels of performance with empowered leaders and enthusiastic staff? Why do certain groups require micro-management and still fail to make sustainable progress while other teams are bursting with creativity and initiative?

Ignoring the Evidence

The failure to learn and change is exemplified with one particular client; a professional services firm who called needing interim HR management assistance as their […]

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Microsoft versus Yahoo Performance Management Systems…Who is right?

Microsoft versus Yahoo Performance Management Systems…Who is right?

Coincidentally, Microsoft and Yahoo have made the news recently for their changes in approach to performance management.  Journalists have conjured up a debate that pits these systems as good against evil or good and bad or the theoretically neutral “people” versus “process”.  I’m not sure if the writers really don’t understand the complexity of performance management or they are simply trying to drive traffic to their blogs.  For me it’s a reminder where not to get useful […]

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What is Values-Based Leadership?

What is Values-Based Leadership?

Defining “values”

An increasing number of business leaders and consultants are embracing the term, “values-based leadership.”  While the words “values-based” generally produce a positive emotional response, most people have no clear idea what it actually means. For some, values refer to presumed universal principles like integrity, justice and service.  Others believe that values are beliefs acquired from parents or the church, such as putting family first, obeying God and playing fair.  Values may also be ideals communicated by […]

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“Lean In”: The Leadership Message for Men

“Lean In”:  The Leadership Message for Men

Two items triggered my recent reading of Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.”  One was the recent article in Fortune magazine that suggested a complex personality behind the COO of Facebook title and the other is the increasingly popular use of the phrase “lean in” in public and private forums.  I typically resist reading these “puff” pieces from business leaders, mostly men, who have professional […]

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