Category: Career Matters
Develop or Die
There seems to be a trend in development today… maybe you’ve noticed it. Perhaps because they’re woefully overburdened with spans of control that are inhuman and inhumane, or perhaps because training and development budgets have been cut to the bone yet again leaving in their wake a sense of scarcity, or perhaps because the corporate […]
Career Conversations: A Chemistry Experiment
In their recent HBR blog post, Judith and Richard Glaser explore the neurochemistry of conversation. They explain that: “When we face criticism, rejection or fear, when we feel marginalized or minimized, our bodies produce higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that shuts down the thinking center of our brain [… causing us to] become more […]
Great Work = Great Career Development
While most organizations expect great work, we don’t necessarily take the time to identify what actually contributes to it. In his book, Great Work, David Sturt has done that for us. Drawing on the research of O.C. Tanner and a Forbes Insight Study of over 1,000 individuals, five key skills or behaviors have emerged: Ask […]
How Well-Populated is Your Pipeline?
Last year, the Aberdeen Group conducted a research study exploring the business impact of building learning capability. Using three key performance criteria to distinguish best-in-class companies, it was found that: 83% of employees in these companies received performance ratings of ‘exceeds performance expectations’; 13% experienced year-over-year improvement to revenue per full-time equivalent; and 78% of […]
Stop Driving Employees Nuts
This article originally appeared at SmartBlog on Leadership in November 2012. After dedicating a large portion of my professional life to helping leaders develop new skills to improve workplace performance, I’ve come to a startling (and perhaps career-limiting) conclusion: Employee engagement, motivation, and results are less about introducing new leadership behaviors and more about just […]
Measuring Career Development Success
Metrics and data are the name of the game today. Since what gets measured gets managed, organizations and the leaders running them are constantly searching for ways to quantify the impact of their initiatives and efforts. Some dimensions – like sales or customer service – are fairly easy to wrap numbers around. Others present real […]
