All in Leadership
This month, the podcast is focused on talent, specifically what we can and should expect of our people, as well as how we evaluate and manage them.
In today's episode, I discuss a simple way to assess whether a performance problem is solvable or not, and that is to ask, whether it's a problem of content or values. The answer to that questions indicates whether the relationship is worth working on or not.
So, if I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’d settled into a very managed emotional pattern when it came to how I engaged with football (soccer for you non-English speakers) and specifically my team, Arsenal Football Club.
Arsenal would play their games and I’d watch, but in a very managed, somewhat detached way (most of the time). If we won, that was great and it gave me a nice feeling, but it wouldn’t send me over the moon.
This month, the podcast is focused on talent, specifically what we can and should expect of our people, as well as how we evaluate and manage them.
In today's episode, I talk about the difficult decision to let capable people go from your organization. People who've grown with you, contributed significantly, and continue to do their work. But, for reason's I discuss, you simply can't keep them any longer.
My son took me to the driving range over the weekend. It was a great chance for us to spend some time together, enjoy the outdoors and work on our golf game.
It had been a long while since I’d even picked up my clubs, so my “golf game” really did need work. (When golfers ask me what my handicap is, I say I don’t have one. Not because I’m a scratch golfer - a zero handicap - but because it’s so high, it isn’t even worth measuring!)
We tend to think of massive entities - ‘working’ entities from big companies to big countries - as having a life of their own. Once they’re set on their way, they progress forward, taking out everything in their path. They have the power of momentum behind them, fueled by past success, money, resources, what-have-you. Forget stopping them in their tracks, just altering their path or slowing them down is difficult to do. Massive entities are very, very difficult to stop.
This month, the podcast is focused on talent, specifically what we can and should expect of our people, as well as how we evaluate and manage them.
In today's episode, I discuss performance evaluations and how the best organizations spend the most time on the hardest aspect of it: managing the talent at the margins.
Our heroes occupy a curious place in our psyche.
We marvel at their ingenuity and intelligence. We admire their persistence in the face of considerable odds and elevate their achievements to the strata of legends.
At the same time, we gloss over the other aspects of their lives and characters. We airbrush over their failings or fully ignore them. We assume their contributions represent the entirety of who they were/are.
When one side is dominant, we tend to think they’ll always be dominant.
Especially when their dominance is all encompassing - more market share, more money, more resources, more access, more everything. They develop an aura of invincibility. Their people sense it, they exude it, they act it.
This month, the podcast is focused on talent, specifically what we can and should expect of our people, as well as how we evaluate and manage them.
In today's episode, I focus on expectations - and why it's important that we expect excellence and commitment from our people. That excellence and commitment aren't nice-to-haves, they're must-haves.
Every deal has a point at which it doesn’t make sense anymore. The point at which the ‘ask’ is just too much.
In a sales deal, it could be when the price is too low, or when the accompanying demands (product add-ons, service level demands, ongoing performance expectations, etc.) aren’t worth the cost.
Of course, this isn’t only the case with sales deals - it happens in all aspects of our lives.
It seems to me that being smart isn’t enough.
Not when you’re trying to get something personal, something important, done.
You can intellectually understand what you need to do. You can comprehend why you need to do it. You can even detail how you need to get it done.
But there’s still no guarantee that you’re going to do it.
This month's podcasts focuses on the mental aspect of how we work - on the why we get started, how we get caught in ourselves and the mental mindset needed to succeed.
In this episode, I wrap up this month’s theme on the mental mindsets we need to be successful, specifically sharing two ideas. The first is about how we should trust ourselves as we decide what we’re doing, when we’re on “the path”. The second is how we should focus on the process, not just the finish line.
There’s many things to consider when we’re making a decision that relates to people - whether we’re hiring someone for our company, deciding on a contractor for a particular job, or choosing between candidates for elected office.
We need to assess their qualifications, their technical competency, their work experience as well as their proposed plan of action (what they’ll do once they’re in the role). All of these are important indicators of the individual’s ability to be successful in the role and it makes sense that we be diligent in evaluating these factors.
When we’ve done things a specific way, acted in a particular manner or simply held a specific point of view for any period of time, we tend to get comfortable. We decide that this is how things work for us, and develop our world view (and accompanying behaviors) around these models.
They might be models we’ve been taught or ones we’ve developed for ourselves, based on our own experiences. But they become ours, whether we think they’re good for us or not (and even when we know they’re not).
This month's podcasts focuses on the mental aspect of how we work - on the why we get started, how we get caught in ourselves and the mental mindset needed to succeed.
In this episode, I talk about confidence, how it's difficult to gain but easy to lose. I also spell out the key behaviors, thought processes and tactics we should deploy to get it back. Our futures depend on it.
Have you ever removed a connection on LinkedIn?
I did recently, for the first time ever. This was someone I’ve known for a while, with plenty of shared experience and common connections. The reason I did it was because of his relentless negativity. There wasn’t a single post he made that was positive. Nothing that was uplifting. Instead, he’d ridicule, make fun and generally denigrate others (including his own employer).
We tend to have this view that science is a ‘fixed’ subject, in the sense that we think of it as defined and permanent in nature. That once scientists have done their thing, that once the facts surrounding a specific topic have been gathered and a perspective has been reached, then that’s it. We’re done.
Of course, that’s not actually the case. Science evolves, it changes and is subject to refinement. That’s actually the value of the scientific process - that as more data is captured, as we see the interplay of different variables over time, we learn more.
In today’s podcast, I’m taking a break from this month’s theme, which focuses on the mental mindsets that impact how we work.
With all that’s going on and what’s been on all of our minds, it didn’t sit right with me. So, what I thought I’d do instead is share, in audio form, the blog post I put out earlier this week on this site, in which I dissected my own thought process on this important issue. I am also including some additional thoughts here in this podcast that I didn’t on my original blog post, so even if you read that post, I hope you’ll give this a listen.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you’ll have noticed that I usually comment or reflect on the most major events of the day in some sort of way, either explicitly or implicitly. But I haven’t really talked about the protests that have been taking place across the country (and indeed the world) over the last couple of weeks.
I’ve wanted to, but, the truth is, I’ve struggled with how to best comment and provide my perspective within the construct of this platform.
This month's podcasts focuses on the mental aspect of how we work - on the why we get started, how we get caught in ourselves and the mental mindset needed to succeed.
In this episode, I discuss the delusion that is inspiration, this idea that if we just wait for it, it will eventually come and deliver us to where we want to go. That's simply not true and I discuss what we should, instead, focus on.
