Perspectives

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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There is no war for talent–not in Asia, anyhow

The ‘war on talent’ was coined by McKinsey in the late ’90′s, for which they made a simple demographic assumption about talent in the US and Europe. With a low or negative birth rate, there would be less people to take over from the baby boomers, and not enough people to fill the job opening,…
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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 tree in my patio

As the US election comes down to the wire, the two sides remain firmly against the other. There was a time when there were political ‘adversaries’, not political arch-enemies that make everyone spew venom. Which somehow made me think of the tree in our backyard. Go figure.. We moved into our flat 3 1/2 years…
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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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It’s not all about you

One comment I could often give C level people I speak to is that “It’s not all about you” (something I also say to my kids at certain intervals). Let me explain. The word I dance with is ‘humility’, which I’ll simply define as ‘understanding not everything that happens for the better is because of…
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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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Social media cross-culturally: US ≠ ROW…

I recently read an[other] article in the New York Times/IHT about social media, how too much online information is shared within a business context. Written by an executive coach(!), she touches upon the corporate challenges of too much openness, and has even created an acronym, which she calls OSD, Obsessive Sharing Disorder(!!). Click here for…
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