How senior leadership teams can make—or break—an organization.
The colossal business failures of the past few years underscore the fact that the conduct of a company’s leadership team is directly correlated with the organization’s long-term performance. Once-venerable institutions such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland paid the ultimate
price for the behaviors of their leadership teams. Merrill Lynch & Co. offers an illustrative case. It has been widely reported that former CEO Stanley O’Neal, who was dumped in October 2007, thwarted debate, ignored feedback from other firm leaders and fired people whose views didn’t mesh with his own. These behaviors sent
a loud message to the rest of the company that differences of opinion would not be tolerated. Observers pointed out that the breathtaking losses suffered by the firm (later taken over by Bank of America) might have been minimized had O’Neal not
marginalized or fired those who tried to warn him about overexposure to credit risk in the subprime market. A similar situation played out at...
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Gaps in Knowledge About Their Customers Are Hampering the Efforts of Some of the World’s Top Companies to Pull Out of the Recession, Says The Boston Consulting Group.
Nearly 90 percent of blue-chip companies are not making the most of their market-research efforts, according to a new report released today by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report, titled The Consumer’s Voice—Can Your Company Hear It?, offers stark evidence that even large blue-chip companies lack basic
knowledge about their customers. In a survey of more than 800 executives based at 40 global companies with sales of $1.5 billion or more, only...
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New research suggests that zero-based budgeting and thorough scenario planning are keys to an optimal IT budget.
During the economic downturn, companies have trimmed their information-technology spending by holding off on purchases and retooling existing systems to squeeze out extra efficiency. But an additional chunk of savings could be realized merely by revamping the IT-budgeting process. How much could be saved by better budgeting? In
some cases, more than 10% of the pie, according to the CIO Executive Board, a networking and research group run by the Corporate Executive Board. The CIO Executive Board created a model of best budgeting practices, based on a survey of 200 of its member IT executives about their budget planning for this year. It then
compared the model with practices employed by companies at the other end of the efficiency spectrum to determine potential savings. The group estimated that some companies wasted...
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Start passing out the straws. Whoever draws the short one gets to tell employees how much less you’ll be reimbursing them for every business mile they drive.
Tell A/P to put their helmets on – they’re in for a bumpy ride. IRS just released the standard mileage rate for 2010, and it’s not going to be popular. Turns out the Service lowered two of the three business mileage rates for 2010. And not by a penny
or two. Here’s what your company will be able to reimburse employees up to, tax-free, starting January 1:...
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If you’re an A/P manager located in the Pacific Southwest, chances are you’re doing pretty well for yourself.
At least according to IOMA’s Accounts Payable Compensation Report 2010 you are. The survey, which gathered responses from A/P pros all over the country, found that A/P managers in the Pacific Southwest (CA, NV and HI) have the highest average salary at...
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For many employers, e-mail has long been the preferred method of communication about anything and everything — but certain things should never be said electronically.
Scary thought: More and more courts are accepting e-mail as evidence — and that means your company can easily end up on the hook for seemingly innocuous e-mails by managers and supervisors. To be safe, remind managers they should always avoid having the following types of conversations via e-mail:...
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Paul Falcone, Time Warner’s VP of employee relations and author of 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees, chooses his words carefully when he has to counsel employees—and he wants you to do the same.
Falcone urges managers and HR pros to tackle tough workplace conversations head-on—but he doesn’t want you to enter the battle unarmed. That’s why he developed a series of “scripts” to use when speaking off the top of your head just won’t do.
Covering an array of topics—from bad breath to time card fraud—Falcone’s language emphasizes treating employees with respect, politeness and firmness...
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Have you discovered all the shortcuts buried within Excel?
Try zipping around Excel spreadsheets using these keyboard techniques:...
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Clear the deck, scrub it down and start over? Remove everything and put back only what you need? In your dreams!
If "cluttered desk," "cluttered mind" is your motto and purging your workstation of clutter is only a dream, approach it one problem at a time. Use these seven steps to "declutter":...
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While the Troubled Asset Relief Program is winding down, it will still be used to aid small banks.
On Dec. 9, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner exercised his option to extend the TARP bailout program until October 2010. And according to Bloomberg.com, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has suggested that lawmakers may seek to finance job-creation measures with unused TARP money. In a talk with Bloomberg TV's Al Hunt on Dec. 4,
Geithner spoke about the unemployment crisis and the debate over so-called Tobin taxes, a proposed global levy on financial transactions to discourage destabilizing speculation. Here are excerpts from the interview...
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Amid so much downsizing, it's risky and unnecessary for managers to let feelings confuse what ought to be a clean transaction.
Since January, more than a million jobs have been cut in the U.S. Although the pace of layoffs has been declining, the downsizing is by no means over. Job cutting is never easy, but it often becomes progressively harder as we go deeper into an organization. At the beginning, employers may be able to lay off only weak employees
they might have considered letting go anyway. While these weak performers are human beings worthy of dignity and respect, we can make ourselves feel okay about their terminations because they are based on merit. The deeper we get, the less likely it is that we honestly can say that a job elimination is simply a matter of letting go
those who should have been let go years ago. Now we are letting go of solid performers who would remain employed in a good economy. Every organization has solid citizens who do fine in anything but a deep recession. But we are not done yet. We are told to go even deeper.Now we must let go of good, or even stellar
performers—employees who add value and who at a different time might be considered for promotion, rather than termination. [Here are 10 things you should never say when terminating an employee:...]
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With so much competition for every job listing out there—there are more than 6.1 job seekers for every job opening, according to the latest job-opening and turnover data from the U.S. Department of Labor—wowing a recruiter during a job interview is even more crucial.
According to a new survey of nearly 500 human-resources professionals released by the Society for Human Resource Management, there are plenty of ways to derail a job interview—and some of them may surprise you. The basic don'ts: arriving late to an interview or trashing a previous employer. But some hiring managers say even
experienced professionals have made other slip-ups. Often, job candidates...
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It was Robert Heinlein, the American science fiction writer, who observed that "progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." How right he was.
The annual study of IT failure by the Standish Group, the "CHAOS Report", suggested that more projects are failing and fewer are delivering successful results. "This year's results show a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on time, on budget, with required features
and functions," they said. Additionally, some 44% were " challenged" - late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions - and 24% failed entirely and were cancelled prior to completion or delivered but never used. So what is going wrong out there? Why are your projects being challenged in this way? Could
it be that your project managers are working too hard to be successful for you?...
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Most people waste what should be a valuable experience.
Up and down the chain of command, year-end performance reviews fill people with dread or with resentment, and very rarely with joy. Both the givers and the receivers spend a lot of time on the reviews, yet they generally see them as an empty exercise. After all the procedural T's are crossed and the I's dotted, it
takes people skills to get a real return on investment from this important, labor-intensive process. Leaders need to set an example by turning a ritual into a productive effort. This column addresses giving a review. In a subsequent article I'll tackle how to get the most out of receiving a review. Both articles aim to
challenge you to shift your focus to the emotional experience on both sides of the table, and to increase the payback from year-end reviews by developing some key psychological skills...
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Do yourself a favor and don't believe them.
In my two decades of work with executives on their communications, I've seen some myths come up over and over again about how best to succeed at speaking in public. The three most common are: "I want to begin with a joke"; "Too much rehearsal is bad for me"; and "It's better to go right to Q and A." Let me debunk each one in turn, in the hope I may save executives and their audiences from future mishap...
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Every twirl of your hair, crossed leg or micro-expression gives off a message. Learn how to take control over how people view you.
Say please and thank you. Don't raise your voice. Sit up straight with your legs together and hands on your lap. Don't draw attention to yourself. And never ever brag. These are the lessons many parents teach their daughters. And while these attributes--politeness, deference, humility--and the way they are projected through
our gestures, gait and self-presentation can certainly help in the classroom and certain social settings, they could be holding many of us back professionally...
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