For the last few years, business owners and fellow bloggers have asked me whether Google+ is “a good investment of my time.” Up until last year, unless you were in the technology, social or dating services business, I’d say, “not very good.” Why? Although they have 100 million plus users, the demographic is: Most likely…
The business world is a different animal than it was 20 or 30 years ago, and for the most part that’s a very good thing. Corporate social responsibility has become a buzz phrase, and many large companies are rising and falling in relation to the way that they treat both their employees and their customers.…
People in the business community love their clichés. “There’s no ‘I’ in team,” “work smarter, not harder,” and my personal favorite, “think outside the box”. Ugh. When it comes to describing a workplace culture, clichés are abundant here as well. With our open-door policies and expectations of giving 150% (how is this even possible?). These general statements…
Leaders are celebrated, while managers are often criticized, but a combination of the two could be just what the economy needs. There’s been an ongoing debate for the past five decades and I’m not talking about Medicare or why the Chicago Cubs haven’t won a title since 1908. This debate has to do with leaders…
Markets are conversations, and these days, they are often led by the crowd. Be it your customers or your employees, they are uniquely empowered to spread the good or bad word about you. Question is, how closely are you listening? More than ever, internet users have two things going for them: Transparency and Tools. They…
Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change – Thomas Hardy In a recent USA Today feature (http://usat.ly/ROMSvv) leaders from various walks of life shared their insights as to what they believe world will look like in 30 years. It was a fascinating read. Here are a few highlights. Bill…
That which is compensated, is motivated. Nothing more, nothing less. Between my speaking and consulting, I have many opportunities to compare comp plans and the resulting corporate cultures they create. If you want to have a strong customer service culture, for example, you’ll need to aim all compensation plans at achieving it. If you want…
Type in the words ‘succession planning’ into a Google news search. Most likely, you’ll find several articles discussing succession planning, or lack thereof, at Apple, Inc. Now, I don’t mean to pick on Apple here, but the issue of succession management appears to serve as a constant woe to Apple stakeholders and the company’s board.…
I recently attended a presentation by Shannon Deegan, Google’s Director of People. Now, a lot has been written about this company and how it is up there in the stratosphere of “best places to work,” as decreed by Fortune magazine and others. Not surprisingly, Google received around 2 million resumés last year and filled 5000…
Google, I’m sure you will agree, is a business built on metrics and analytics. Well, they recently completed an comprehensive, rigorous internal study about what made great managers…at Google. The New York Times article says that Google wanted to build better bosses. Now, that certainly strikes a positive chord for me and boy does it…