Today, I attended the Wall Street Journal series of events entitled How I Built It. As a follow-on to their ongoing column where they profile entrepreneurs who have built successful enterprises, they are doing a small "nationwide" tour where their small business editor (and the audience) interviews a group of 6 of these folks in an attempt to better understand their experiences, success models etc…
At today's even t(3/31/11), attendees included the founders/co-founders from the following firms: Popchips, One Kings Lane, Thrillist.com, Ouidad and Reef.
When asked by a WSJ reader (connected online to the event), what their biggest mistake was, a variety of responses ensued. These included being away from the business too much at the onset, listening to advice from the wrong people and...
Have you ever made a bad people selection decision?
- Hired the wrong person for a job
- Chose the wrong person for a team or project
- Invested in training new salespeople or reps, only to find that they achieved poor results when it came time to get to work (Knowledge is not necessarily power unless accompanied by the right capabilities).
Unfortunately, making bad people decisions is not hard to do. Currently enhanced by a slow economy, some of the factors that contribute to this include:
- Lying on resumes and exaggerating skill sets are prevalent - studies have indicated over 80% of resumes contain at least one significant lie.
- Impressive credentials can create bias relating to overall qualifications or real weaknesses.
- Most candidates have prepared well to sell themselves and it's not that hard to "perform" for 60 minutes but that performance may have little to do with...
Here are a few question to address your organization's problem-solving effectiveness:
- Do the leaders in your organization understand accurately the underlying values and mindsets regarding addressing root causes or solving problems?
- How much fear/paranoia exists fro m surfacing problems?
- How does this contribute to employees preferring to keep problems they see to themselves?
- When problems occur, are employees supported in their effort to determine root causes or find solution or does the blame game kick in?
- Is there a divide between those who create and those who solve problems?
- What actions are...
How effective are your "people" decisions?
Making the right decisions regarding the WHO in your organizations involves two often sub-optimally done activities
- Choosing the right person for the job.
- Ensuring that each person's competencies, skills and attitudes are a fit for high performance for their overall role in the organization.
These are at the core of people optimization in businesses. A relatively recent buzzword term that seeks to encompass these issues is talent management. In any case, if you assess the activities of the most successful leaders in organizations, you'll find they put far more time, attach far higher priority and indeed have a highly significant focus on these issues of people selection and fit. When you see an organization struggling with decline or mediocrity, it is also nearly always not present in any effective...
People Decisions
"Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves, their strengths, their values, and how they best perform." Peter Drucker Success in much greater terms comes from those leaders who know their people's strengths, values and performance factors as well.
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