Smart Leaders Do More Than Talk About Talent
Those of you familiar with my work know how much I detest politically correct sound-bites. Even worse - when those sound-bites are used in an attempt to make statements that embolden a corporate position that doesn't really exist, to begin with. Just because something is written in a vision or mission statement, placed on a website, included in company collateral material, or frequently espoused…
Diversity and Leadership – Right Topic Wrong Conversation
I have grown quite weary of the politics driving the “Diversity” discussion. Let’s begin with this and see if we can agree on a jumping-off point: Giving special preference to any individual, class, or group to the advantage or disadvantage of another is wrong. Sounds reasonable, yes? Regrettably, many companies are creating operating environments where the opposite is true and conscious bias has…
Questions and Team Building for CEOs
An army of one isn't really much of an army is it? And I can assure you that any CEO who views him or herself as an army of one will fail. Whether you like it or not, your success as a CEO will be largely tied to your team building ability. Not only do great CEOs understand how to recruit a top executive team, but they also understand how to build cohesion among team members through collaboration…
Why Consensus Kills Team Building
I read an interesting post by Dan Rockwell (@LeadershipFreak) entitled "Six ways to make teams work" and found myself in complete agreement with Dan on 5 out of the 6 points. Where Dan lost me was on point #4 - Teams Decide by Consensus. In recent months I have observed a decent amount of politically correct discourse on the topic of team building, consensus and equality. The gist of the argument…
Values Based Hiring
Why play a game of chance when you don't have to? I was casually reading the results of a survey on the topic of hiring methodologies last weekend when one particular survey question really caught my attention: "When considering a new hire, what is the one characteristic or attribute of the candidate that would most influence your hiring decision?" The "right" answer seemed quite obvious to me,…
Leadership & Employee Engagement
The topic of "Employee Engagement" is something that many CEOs tend to struggle with. Long gone are the days where the executive leadership of a company can remain sequestered in their offices with an internal focus on hard metrics. Given the current economic climate, it takes far more than cost-cutting to survive. It is the CEO who understands the need for focus on the soft metrics of customer…
Cutting Employee Churn
Today's Myatt on Monday's question comes from a CEO who asked: "Our employee turnover is higher than I would like it to be. If you had to point out one factor that drives employee churn, what would that be?" Few things in business are as costly and disruptive as having the proverbial revolving door for employees to exit from. Even worse is not knowing how to stop the door from turning. While an…
Employment Agreements
The need for a sound employment agreement is not something to be trivialized. I recently received an e-mail from a CEO who was unceremoniously "asked" to resign by his board of directors. He asked me to author a post on the value of employment agreements in the hope of preventing other CEOs from unnecessarily subjecting themselves to a forced resignation scenario. So, in today's post, I'll…
Employee Retention
Employee retention discussions are often reserved for burgeoning economic times when competition for talent is high. Therefore it holds true that during tough economic times, when unemployment is high, employee retention quite frequently just gets ignored. Today's Myatt on Monday's question comes from a CEO who asks: "In a post earlier this month ("Workforce Reduction") you criticized CEOs who…
Increase Employee Engagement With More FACE Time
While the majority of our readers are CEOs, savvy senior execs, and seasoned entrepreneurs, I've noticed that we've been experiencing a rapid growth of late in readership falling within the ranks of developing leaders. So when Phil Gerbyshack was kind enough to offer to do a guest post I was ecstatic! Phil has established himself as a prolific writer and speaker whose savvy is well beyond his…
CEO Job Searches
CEO job searches are extremely competitive in today's market. Other than running for political office, there is no interview process that will subject you to such a rigorous vetting process. I was recently interviewed for the September issue of "CareerSmart Advisor" in which I was asked to articulate what it takes to successfully secure a CEO position. In the text that follows I have provided a…
Employee Onboarding
Employee onboarding is not something for CEOs to take lightly. The ability to scale your company will be largely dependant on your ability to recruit, retain, and properly deploy new employees. While certainly important, recruiting is not the end-game, but rather it is the very first step in the talent management lifecycle. Over the years, I have watched great recruiting efforts fall prey to…
Service Above Self
"Service Above Self" is a statement that resonates with everyone who has ever been on the receiving end of the service. However, it has been my experience that the concepts of "Service Above Self" and "Servant Leadership" while often discussed, and always admired, are far too rarely practiced. It is precisely this shortcoming that accounts for many of the problems faced by our business leaders,…
Affordable Employee Benefits
Today's Myatt on Monday's question was posed by a CFO who asked: "What is the best way to manage the rising cost of employee benefits?" While the escalating cost of benefits is something that all companies deal with, for small and middle market entities the prices and complexities are nothing short of staggering. In today's post I'll address one of the best and most often overlooked option for…
CEO Resources
I just returned from my first extended blogging vacation, and after taking the last 10 days to recharge my batteries I can earnestly state that I'm glad to be back. In my first post I thought I'd offer you a gift by providing a list of some of my favorite links. You can bookmark this post, and by adding this page to your favorites you will have a single location that will serve as a valuable list…
Investing In Talent
I recently read a blog post on all the reasons not to hire "superstars" and I could not have disagreed more with what I read. The more I continued to read the drivel being espoused by this blogger the more I realized how prevalent his assertions and positions have become in today's business world. I have always subscribed to the philosophy that the quality of an organization's talent will have a…