How Retention is Like Gardening: At Times, You Need to Change the Soil

“What time did you get in last night,” I asked my daughter.

“Around 3 am,” she answered. It was now 5:45 am and I was leaving the house. As I walked downstairs from her room, I shook my head in wonderment. My question was this: how can you continue working people all these hours?

Everyone has a breaking point.

Overlong shifts will eventually impact retention

When my daughter interviewed for the job, she was told that yes, there would be late hours. She assumed that a few nights would be OK.

Offering a Hand: Who in the Talent Pipeline Are You Helping to Pull Up?

"As she climbs up the ladder she has the other hand extended to bring someone else along."

I was watching Oprah’s Lifeclass the other day, and one of the things that resonated with me was that statement that one of her friends said about Oprah and why she was successful.

Who is next in your pipeline? Who do you have your other hand extended to?

Succession or replacement? You choose

I read with interest a few weeks back when it was announced that McDonalds will have Don Thompson as the new CEO after chief executive JIm Skinner retires.

Recruiting 3.0: Today, It’s All About “Making Meaningful Connections”

This is my tweet (see below) from Thursday afternoon after I got a glimpse of this campaign to find a new CTO.

Not only that, but the person that is eventually chosen can have $10,000 donated to his favorite charity.

“A CTO with heart” does not quite fit into my mind when I think of a CTO. I know numerous Chief Technical Officers, but I would be hard pressed to figure out which one had “heart” in this context.

How Would You Do If You Were Ranked By Your Former Employees?

I saw and interesting article this week about a Glassdoor survey  which shows that the highest rated CEO is Tim Cook of Apple.

His approval rating was a whopping 97 percent. That rating even beat out his former boss, Steve Jobs. And as so many have reported, Jobs was pretty challenging to work for.

That was not what surprised me, though.

I wondered about how we, as leaders and managers, would be rated by our former direct reports. How would we fare?

Staying connected with former colleagues