July 2012

Jul 31 2012

The Language of Bias

I’m really happy for Marissa Mayer, the new Yahoo CEO. She’s obviously a talented, intelligent executive.  But when her promotion made headlines, it wasn’t about the fact that she was only 37, or about her success at Google. It was Marissa Mayer is pregnant. Would that have been the headline if a man took the job and his wife was expecting?

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Jul 27 2012

3 Ways to Manage Through a Scandal

Unless you’ve been living in an ashram, you’ve noticed that corporate scandal is no longer limited to the financial services industry.  Between Penn State, the recent bribery scandal at Wal-Mart, and the phone hacking scandal at News Corporation, it seems like the inmates have taken over the asylum.  Since as a manager, you’re likely the one who has to lead your teams through all this muck, what do you do?

 

 

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Jul 24 2012

Not Everyone Should Know the Reason You Fired Someone

Ever work with someone who was fired and no one tells you why?  There’s always a lot of closed doors, whispering and speculation but mouths are sealed and few people ever know what happened.  Why the big secret and when is it okay to spill beans?

 

 

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Jul 20 2012

Want to Get Ahead? Get a Mentor

When I first started my career, the term “mentor” didn’t exist in the business world. Sure, there were leaders you respected and of course they had their favorites, but mentor, what does that even mean? According to Webster, it’s “ a trusted counselor or guide”. I thought you stopped having counselors in College.

 

 

 

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Jul 18 2012

Do You Always Follow Orders?

How many of us would have the courage to say no to a CEO request? It’s easy to read the news and judge others, but most of us would be like Jerry del Missier, the ex-COO Of Barclays, who testified that he manipulated interest rates on orders from CEO Diamond.  I’m not convinced many of us would have done differently.  Maybe it’s not huge requests like the one at Barclays, but haven’t we all be asked or asked others to do some of the following:

 

 

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Jul 16 2012

When Setting Goals- Wishful Thinking Doesn't Work

“If you think you can grow 5%, let’s double that and do 10%.”  That was the mantra of a former boss who embraced aggressive growth goals as a way of life.   Everyone liked working for him, so we just nodded and did the best we could. But in retrospect, we should have...

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Jul 12 2012

Two Attributes Every Great Salesperson Must Have

The recent Harvard Business Review is all about sales.  The first article that caught my eye was about sale’s predictors of success. The other article that struck me was the one on what CEOs need to do to improve sales.  Both are excellent articles and they bring up salient points.  But not sure successful selling is all that complicated.

 

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