Category: Creating a Culture

Celebration for cause

It isn’t really important to decide when you are very young just exactly what you want to become when you grow up. It is much more important to decide on the way you want to live. If you are going to be honest with yourself and honest with your friends, if you are going to…
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Management sailing–smooth or choppy?

I spoke to a woman I know who was being offered a new job with a new company; the money was good, not a huge jump, but an industry she wanted to be in, and willing to take it for a not-so-big increase, a perfectly legit reason. Well regarded at her current company, she announced…
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Pope Benedict’s management lesson..

I don’t follow the papacy very much, but as Benedict’s sudden resignation has been front page news everywhere, I just finished reading a front page in today’s (14 Feb) IHT/NYT, headlining that he had no choice but to step down, calling him a ‘weak manager.’ That piqued my curiosity. Not a weak leader, but a…
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Tortoise and Hare management lesson

I recently wrote ’8 pointers on how to get a job’, but neglected one important point. Do not martyr yourself and die on the job. I know plenty of people who have a distinct work modus operandi – I see it on CV’s and this is reinforced when I meet them. They take a new…
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Send In The Clones??

Many corporates believe that in order to build a high performing team, hire top talent, in turn they’ll attract their own ilk, et voila, problem solved for talent acquisition. The best hire the best, right? Mediocre talent hires even worse talent. That’s the thinking, and has been ingrained in management. This is, of course, nonsense,…
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Whose side are you on anyhow?

In a work dispute, any on-looker or mildly interested third party will not know all the facts. We’re often faced with such stand-offs inside companies; listening to colleagues complain about the boss’ lunacy; seeing how global HQ has suddenly created more ‘useless red tape’, hearing the gossip of a pending re-org, who’s in or out,…
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The Snake in the Grass

I recently had coffee with a friend, a former senior hedge fund manager. He now works on his own, paid his dues over many years in the banks, and for a number of years ran the Asia-Pac investment-banking practice for one of the white-shoe financial institutions. As is my wont, we talked about corporate politics.…
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Networked or overworked?

What is your network? How large is it? How varied, how supportive for you is your network? If you think this is a simple exercise or question, you probably don’t have the right network yet. It amazes me how many ‘senior’ business people are less than interested about building, cultivating and maintaining their professional network…
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Please please me

I had coffee last week with a woman who is General Counsel for a US based consultancy. She reminisced about her first job 20-some years ago, working with a senior partner in a law firm who was a notorious SOB. His reputation was to intimidate and grind down those who were supposed to help him.…
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