Managing Performance

No longer an annual event Naturally, I am fascinated by how businesses operate and what management styles work in certain situations.  Recently, I have focused my attention on how postindustrial age hierarchy is not working and what that means for companies who are conventional in their human capital management structure. Early in my career I…

Do you have C Players on your team? Sophisticated yet basic logic for managers

The credit for this month’s article goes to Don VanWinkle. Don is a management savant, master of small business finance, and generally brilliant man. I have been honored to know him as a friend, mentor and banker for more than a decade. Don and I were having lunch a few weeks ago and one of…

Tough Interview Question Series Chapter 4 – Preparing for behavioral questions

The hardest part of the interview process is preparing for situational or behavioral questions.  The reason for this is that you really don’t have a clue what will be asked.  How in the world do you prepare for the unknown?  Here are some tips that will allow you to trump your competition.   Become a…

Show your new hires some love

Retention starts before their first day! An effective onboarding program can have a significant impact on your ability to retain great people, help them get up to speed quickly and contribute productively – sooner.  The key is to make each new team member feel important and help remove those new job jitters as quickly as…

Are you loving your “Keepers?”

Unless you’ve been underground for the past few months you’ve probably noticed that businesses are feeling more optimistic about the economy lately. This is especially true in the Rocky Mountain Region. There is a significant uptick in hiring happening in just the last few weeks. This activity is also being felt by your employees –…

How to Tune-up a Team

Get out of neutral Last month we talked about how your company’s reputation has an impact on the candidate profiles that you attract. That’s great if you are happy with the level at which your team is performing, the personality that emanates from your internal community and the people in that community.  But what if you want to initiate a change? …

Your company’s reputation precedes you

The law of (candidate) attraction I get a lot of comments from hiring managers that they just can’t seem to attract the right people to their open positions.  The perception is that there isn’t good talent out there and that is one of the primary challenges affecting company growth.  While I agree that we need to continue to promote education…

Interviews that Matter

Using a blended interview format for better outcomes Interviewing techniques are all over the place – each hiring manager has their own style whether learned, imparted upon or self-created.  I will assert that for the most part, you are interviewing from the job description and evaluating candidates based primarily on the bullet points in this…