Category: Creating a Culture

The boss can mentor, but can the boss really coach?

I often hear senior management (Pres, CEOs, MDs ) say they’re good coaches to their key people. And I see more books exhorting leaders to be Chief Coach. Hmmm.. Many bosses can mentor, (often be great mentors), but it’s not quite the same thing as coaching.. I personally don’t think bosses are good coaches. Occasionally,…
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When the new job is a bad fit, who’s to blame?

My breakfast companion was talking about an organisation he’d recently joined. After the interviews and flights back to the US for final rounds, the job was his for the taking. He took it, but had done little due diligence or spoken much with the Asia team, mostly US HQ. He was given a big title,…
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The lunatic boss

Ever worked for a lunatic? Not merely someone with a temper, but egomaniacal, unstable, who has all the power.. I have, and I daresay many of you have as well if you’ve worked long enough. Many years ago I worked with an Austrian who’d lived in Hong Kong for many years. He’d just been hired…
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Mister Martyr

Some of my conversations are with people who have become martyrs at work, much as they doth protest otherwise. They’ll likely contact me to ‘explore the market’, busy with their job, trading off personal time–and reputation–for the good of the company. Not much left for themselves, and scant time to build their [professional] profile. Many…
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Hi-po hi-po, it’s outta here I go..

High potentials, “hi-po’s”, ‘our future [company] leaders’ in business argot.. The ones corporations ululate over, often for sound reasons. If an organisation has strong internal talent, they should recognise, challenge, motivate, and grow them, allowing such people to flex their muscles whilst building the company. But companies often lose those they want to keep. Why…
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“You can’t take it back”

My [teenage] children were on school break last week. While making lunch for my son, he finished his call on his mobile and said he’d be out in 10 minutes to hang with one of his good friends. I replied “He seems a little bossy sometimes, telling you where to go and when,” hastily linking…
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Interviewing protocol–Listen up, y’all

An interview is a two way street, more so with senior level hires. Most candidates who take the time to interview are otherwise engaged in a day job, but interested enough to pursue a new possibility. The company doing the interviewing often falls flat on their corporate face, misunderstanding the protocol of interviewing, from timing,…
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We come bearing presence… 3 holiday tips

I recently had a lunch conversation which centred around C level people whom my lunch companion’s company thought needed help getting to that next (and near) top-level. Mostly Asian, with the company for a good stretch, all considered valuable and high potential. What is the help they need? Accordingly to him, better English. Come again?…
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Say wha’? Communicative cha cha cha..

People like to hire their own, often assuming everyone understands the same goals, and ‘speaks the same language’. I had breakfast in Beijing not long ago with a friend. A mainland Chinese who’d gone to grad school in the US and ended up working for a well known US private equity company. Back in China…
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ABCs of hiring in Asia

[framed_box]A) My contrarian position that there is no ‘shortage of talent’ continues. There is plenty of talent, and thus plenty of potential. No new hire is a ‘finished work of art’, ‘ready made’, and knows the job to be done at the outset. Yet many internal stakeholders are too busy or seldom in the office…
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