7 Ways Performance Reviews Kill Performance
The annual performance review is widely believed to be the least popular practice in business. An artifact from post WWII corporate America, performance reviews have been described as a “rite of corporate kabuki.” Stanford University professor and leadership author Bob Sutton says that doing performance evaluations well is like “doing blood-letting well — it is…
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World Class People Development (Case Study)
This article was originally published on CPHR Alberta In talking with business leaders about implementing a world class people development process in their companies, one often hears: “We just don’t have the budget for that sort of program.” Or, “We’re a very low-tech company. We’re not sophisticated enough to have world class anything.” Many business…
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What Is Culture and How Can You Change It?
Although the origin of the phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is up for debate (we aren’t 100% sure who said it first), the validity of the phrase is not debatable. There is no question and ample evidence that culture, like the mass of an iceberg lurking below the surface of the ocean, can sink the…
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Why Personality Assessments Do More Harm Than Good
Wouldn’t it be great if there existed a magical tool that could peer into a person’s soul and tell you how well they’ll turn out if you hire or promote them? That’s pretty much what the nearly one-third of companies who use personality assessments believe they’ve found. But what if there are flaws in this…
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Is Your Organization Addicted to Recruiting?
Addictions are everywhere these days. Even seemingly innocuous behaviours can become addicting if left unchecked. For example, some people are addicted to sugar, to their smart phones and devices, to social media, etc. But recruiting? Come on, I must be joking, right? An addiction is a “behavior for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling…
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5 Powerful Practices to Give Feedback Like a Pro
In my previous article on How To Cure A Passive-Aggressive Culture, I made the case that the essence of leadership is to “go before” and guide others to a destination. The way leaders guide others is by constantly pointing to the destination and providing frequent feedback about how well individual efforts are moving the team…
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How To Cure a Passive-Aggressive Culture
It’s one thing to have to deal with one person at work who uses passive-aggressive tactics, but what do you do when your workplace culture actually promotes this type of dysfunctional communication and behaviour? Do any of these situations sound familiar? Implying that someone is stupid without actually saying it, such as “You should know…
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3 Essential Elements of a Learning Organization
Do you know someone who has had many experiences that should have taught them something (humility, money management, stop dating losers, etc.) but they haven’t learned it? Easy, right? We can all point to people who haven’t learned from their experiences. Now what if I asked you, “What changes have you made in the last…
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