I find it disturbing when business leaders choose to use CSR to compensate for ethically questionable business.
Category Archives: Communication
Principles Reign Supreme Over Values
A company I know has a stated value of innovation that it parades out in front employees on a regular basis, but rarely, if ever, do any staff or managers innovate anything—including staff in research and development!
Empathy Trumps Projection
Projection and empathy are not the same thing, but they are often confused. Empathy is the ability to understand how someone is thinking, whereas projection is presuming a person thinks like you. Be careful not to project when it is empathy that you intend. Continue reading
Forget Recruiting. Poach.
Don’t recruit. Poach. In a tight labor market, there is no percentage in tentativeness. If there is any time to go on the offense, it is now.
I don’t know why recruiting firms call what they do a “search.” Who cares about a search? A search is easy, and often consists of little more than trawling through LinkedIn. Continue reading
When Risk Aversion is Personal
There is nothing wrong with risk aversion.
It is only aversion to reasonable business risk that is a problem. When a business leader complains of excessive risk aversion in his staff, the underlying concerns are frequently personal. Continue reading
No Pain Points, No Problems
What if your prospects and clients have no pain points and no problems?
Presumption of damage is never a good way to start a relationship with anyone, whether in business or otherwise.
Not long ago, I was working with a sales team helping improve their capability to ask questions when meeting with prospects. Without fail, during role plays when I played the customer, each one asked me variations of, “Do you have any particular problems?”
When I responded, “No, we don’t have any particular problems,” each salesperson was flustered and did not know how to respond. Each one, after a few awkward exchanges simply withdrew and promised to call again at a later date.
Retain Just the Best
You want to retain just the best in your organization.
Why?
Retention, per se, is no business objective. It is retaining the best that counts, even in the tightest of labor markets.
Continue reading
Institutionalize Confrontation
If you want to improve collaboration in your business, it should not be done by encouraging harmonious interaction. Rather, you must institutionalize confrontation.
No healthy organization is ever in harmony; it is constructive disharmony that is the ideal state. Natural tension always exists between individuals and groups in any organizations, and there is no resolution of conflict without confrontation.
