Category: General

No talent in Asia??

Ah, the never ending drum beat on the “war on talent”… In the 21 June issue of Newsweek, Mac Margolis writes of all doom and gloom for Asia, no good talent to find. “Executives Wanted” is the titled article. Read it yourself. His premise is that companies are wringing their hands because in Asia there…
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High drama Obama–How about you?

In my last blog I mentioned a confrontational leader who made people uncomfortable with his selective anger. A [successful] boss will know how to be–only at times–unpredictable in order to achieve an end result. It is an essential component of strategic leadership, knowing when to dip in to one’s repertoire and pull out the right…
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Never outshine the master

My lunch partner last week is a senior business executive. with regional (AP) scope. The conversation was long, engaging, and fun. At one point, it turned to hiring practices. He looked at me and said, “My boss and his boss [at global HQ in the US] just did a telephone interview with someone out here…
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To thine own self, promote

Had a coffee with a friend of mine whose has a pretty good life; not working in a corporate job (was a CEO in his last role), has a retainer from a previous company for a couple of years, steady income off of rental property, now works on deals to make equity shares, picking and…
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Feedback and Lucy Kellaway

In her latest Financial Times column, Lucy Kellaway humourously writes about “feedback”, (Why Feedback Forms Leave Me Fed Up, FT 8 March) and how at dinners, a well known CEO would critique his dinner partners at the end of the evening—from conversation content, delivery to eye contact—as constructive criticism. Kellaway went on to say: When…
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Keep the tongue in check

Over the weekend my daughter was out with her friends. She needed to be back at a certain time, and as it got later, I got irritated, thinking what I was going to say to her when she called. In passing (as my ire grew), I mentioned to my son that if she didn’t get…
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Words to work with in 2010

Do what you have to do first, and then do what you like to do. Adjust your goals to fit your talents and limitations so that reduced goals don’t frustrate you. Know how to proportion the means to an end, so that you don’t fire a cannon to kill a caterpillar, or wave a rod…
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HR and headhunters–an uneasy alliance

When people talk about headhunters, you often hear them referred to in rather snippy tones “a necessary evil”, “snake-oil salesmen”, “bucketshops”, “in it for the money but no idea what they’re doing”, “a waste of time”. At the same time, HR still has that awful moniker of Human Remains, and remarks about HR are as…
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What’s your corporate profile?

One of the challenges of working overseas, physically far from corporate, is that you become remote, literally. Lots of work to do in Asia, often with more impact than wherever corporate is, but if you have not profile back at HQ, you’re in jeopardy. Had a delightful lunch today with a senior level guy who…
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Cultural fit

I spend a lot of time assessing people on whether they will fit within a company. The higher up one goes, it is a given that you can do the job-but that is not a strategic hire. The focus is whether the person can communicate at various levels: Know what to say and when to…
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