By Carl Robinson, Ph.D., copyright 2006 In the aftermath of the recent defection of Alan Mulally from Boeing to run the Ford Motor Company, I had several discussions with executives about the rationale behind the choice (his reasons and Ford’s). It seems appropriate, therefore, to review the current best thinking on the criteria used by Read More >
Selection, Retention & Succession
Accelerating Leadership Development
By Carl Robinson, Ph.D., copyright 2009 One of the hallmarks of highly effective executives is their willingness and ability to act proactively regarding their own and their employee’s professional development. I am constantly amazed, however, about the frequency in which we (I refer to my colleagues in the Society of Consulting Psychology of the American Read More >
11 Steps For Selecting Top Management Talent
By Carl Robinson, Ph.D., © 2010 Given the expense associated with recruiting executives and the high cost of making poor choices you would think executives would want to do this well. However, I am continually amazed at how frequently senior HR folks will tell me that they have a very difficult time getting their bosses Read More >
How Do You Value Training?
Advanced Concepts: Evaluating Training Programs One of the questions that I get frequently is “How will we know that a training effort is working?” It’s a good question – and one that deserves a thorough answer. Whether you are an HR Director, Training Manager, Department Manager, or even a classroom participant it can be helpful Read More >
10 Tips for Attracting and Keeping Top Talent
Make no mistake: your top-performing talent is aware of their value to the company. They also hold the company to a higher standard because they know they deserve it. Finding this sometimes-elusive talent—and keeping them—requires that senior leaders humanize their companies by investing empathy and communication, and a good deal of trust in the employees Read More >
3 Ways to Effectively Gauge Leadership Performance
“Good leadership is hard to measure on a daily basis, which is why so many default to doing what’s easy to measure instead.” This quote, pulled from the Twitter feed of best selling leadership author and TED Talks speaker, Simon Sinek, gets to the heart of a real issue—when we can’t tell how well we’re Read More >
A 10-Step Action Plan for Managing Millennials
The face of the American workforce is getting younger. Millennials—born in the last quarter of the 20th Century—now comprise more than one-third of working-age people in the U.S.This generation cut their teeth on rapidly-advancing technology, financial prosperity, immediate gratification, and multi-culturalism. Here are the top 10 things you must know about managing Generation Y employees: They Read More >
3 Things We Can Learn from Michael Phelps About Talent Development
How would you like it if all your employees performed their jobs with the same level of quality and commitment as Michael Phelps gives to swimming? Of course you would. He’s participated in 5 Olympics; won a total of 25 medals, including 21 Gold, 2 Silver, and 2 Bronze; and earned the title of world’s Read More >
How to Lead Top Performers in a Global Econonmy
In our modern global economy, most businesses rely on well-educated people — or “knowledge workers,” as the late Peter Drucker called them — to develop their products or deliver their services. In these organizations, many executives are finding that traditional forms of leadership don’t work. “Heroic leadership,” as it is called, is the conventional idea Read More >
The Science of Employee Motivation
Contrary to popular belief, employee incentives have limited positive effect on performance of employees or executives. According to Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton in their must-read book, Hard Facts, Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, “individual incentives and highly differentiated reward and recognition distributions make more sense when performance can be objectively assessed Read More >