Perspectives

Cross culture ·

Diversity ∝ Leadership

Diversity and Inclusion departments work extremely hard on equitable and balanced hiring, a highly perused process today. There is diversity of gender, ethnicity, language, pedigree, and perspective. A corporation’s goal-as a profit-maximising entity- is not simply to have ‘check-the box’ diversity, but to utilise ir in order to become better. Multiple perspectives nearly always create…

Talent and Hiring ·

Hire with Head and Heart

Hire with head and heart. If you’re not emotionally engaged to bring on a new hire, it’s a chore. If time and thought is not invested, it’s easy to get weary of the hiring process, and it gets pushed back for a later date. A decision is, by default, uncertain. Such is life, and such…

Cross culture ·

Cross-cultural cantatas and chorales

A client once got hold of me a few years ago to ask if I did coaching for communication. One of his ‘high-po’s’ in Tokyo was having difficulty communicating on conference calls. He asked if that was something I did. I asked him whether it was her lack of English fluency, or knowing what to say but getting…

Interviewing ·

Each Interview Counts

I recently spoke to a [young] friend of mine who is scoping the market, and interviewing for another job with another company. The role reports into someone he knows quite well, who is apparently keen to get him on board. I asked him how it was going. “Pretty smooth so far. I’ve had four interviews,…

Coaching ·

Coaching For Wha’?

Can we not call it coaching anymore? I’m not sure what we should call it, but the ubiquity of “coaching” is now astounding. From the oft-used executive and career coaching, there have sprouted a number of subsets. As is true with many practices today, such as medicine, everyone must specialise, but this not quite the…

Communication ·

Ill Repute

A lunch conversation the other week, and we turned our talk to a mutual friend. My lunch partner (who does not work with him, but partners with others in the company) had recently spoken with him about his challenges inside the organisation. “I told him-very indirectly-that his boss has been asking around about him. Nothing…

Communication ·

Tell Me You Love Me–A Tale of Talent Loss and Retention

I recently spoke with a friend, a very accomplished professional in her field, working for a well-known MNC. She’d considered leaving them for another company (not a competitor), and they had just increased her overall package, so she was staying put. I asked her what had happened. She told me that she really enjoyed the…

Communication ·

Listen Up

I recently spoke to an ex Australian government official about Tony Abbott. “Abbott”, he said, “is not a good listener. He does as he pleases, and it is him calling the shots, not his foreign ministry nor those in his cabinet. What you see in the press is just Abbott being Abbott.” “Fair enough”, I…

Communication ·

How some companies interview badly; 5 suggestions to raise the bar

I once had a corporate client with bad interviewing habits. It wasn’t just one person; the slowness to hire seemed to be part of their culture, a rather sclerotic interviewing process. The visible damage was often good candidates, initially interested in joining but lost interest after a few months, and later spoke disparagingly about them,…

Communication ·

Tell Me What You Think, Seriously…

Early in my career, I had an interview with the MD of a competitor. It was scheduled for late afternoon in their office, and the earlier part of the day had been awful. I’d misplaced my wallet and phone in the gym during lunch, and spent unneeded energy looking for them, panicking about not being…