Yes, 2022 is here - thankfully - and we can finally say good riddance to 2021. You've already got a long list of things to do ... executing the annual plan, inspiring your team, committing to a new level of productivity … and so it goes. To give you a…
Can we develop an incentive plan to drive superior performance? You can be pretty sure that's the question someone was trying to address when your key incentive program was created. At the time, the answer may have been yes. Since then? The chances are that question has never been asked…
You probably know someone, don’t you, who is a star performer who believes that her achievements go unrewarded?I’ve talked about the value of incentives before, but it keeps coming to mind as I talk to senior executives who don’t seem to have spent any time at all considering whether their incentive plans are working as intended … or whether they need to be revised.
In some ways, it reminds me of the comment that Bloomberg attributed to Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, during the $20 billion bonus scandals during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown.
According to Bloomberg, this was his comment … (more…)
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So, why not jump into the deep end right now by reading Business Finance is about much more than finance
I’ve said before that leaders don’t have the luxury of confining their interests to just a few things
‘Always ask why. Dig deeper. Get the facts.’ Avoid the crowd mentality“Ask Why” was their motto.
“Wheel Out,” “Fat Boy” “Death Star” and “Get Shorty” were some of the nicknames applied to their strategies.
Confirmation letters of successful trades were addressed to names like “Mr. M. Yass and “Mr. M. Smart” … and I think you can parse the underlying contempt.
“Rank & Yank” described their people performance system, “Pump and Dump” their trading strategy.
About $70 billion of market value was destroyed, more than 20,000 employees lost their jobs and pension funds worth $3.2 billion were destroyed, more than two thirds of which belonged to retirees with little chance to rebuild.
I had always intended to watch “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” the 2005 movie based on a book by the same name from co-authors Peter Elking and Bethany McLean, but it got lost in the shuffle until last week.
It chronicles the Enron cataclysm, whose meteoric ascent was violently terminated with its bankruptcy on Dec. 3, 2001.
It’s hard to believe this happened almost 10 years ago since to be “like Enron” still reverberates as an ignominious curse. It’s really more like a viral infection, though, because so many of the forces that drove its destruction have cleaved similar fissures in scandals from (more…)
The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.
This page provides the Print-Friendly Version of the article, as published.
Any related materials or articles referenced in the column, or otherwise applicable, will also be referenced below:
The electronic version of the article, as published, may be found here.
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Article published -November 30 2009
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
– Albert Einstein
Last time I presented the dichotomy of two opposing cultures and posed the question: If measured by financial performance, how can dramatically different organizations be equally successful? In this continuing series, we’ll explore some of the combinations and permutations of sound business principles and cultural patterns that often collide within an organization’s walls.
In many ways, it doesn’t seem fair that both charitable and churlish cultures can thrive. It’s easy to embrace the benevolent culture created by Sid Rich (we’ll call it Company South, “S” for Sid) as profiled in my last column.
That company deserves to be successful. Wouldn’t it be great if that was the company I worked for? Contrarily, when you look across the aisle at the rough and tumble world of Company North (“N” for Nasty), highlighted by temper tantrums, public floggings and a petulant devotion to spending a dime on anything, we’re either glad we’re not working there … or wishing we didn’t.
Some powerful lessons are evident as we compare and contrast these companies, their styles and culture, although some lessons are not very inviting. (more…)
How do you create jobs? Finally, this question is finally getting some attention in Washington ... sadly, it took increasing painful unemployment reports to get this front and center ... but from the ground floor where we live, I don't see the efficacy of some of the programs being considered.…
In his fascinating book, Freakonomics, Steven Levitt remarked that “Incentives are the cornerstone of life” … yet so many companies don’t pay more than cursory attention to them, and invariably, only with respect to the most mundane, traditional sales compensation plans.
There’s probably nothing you can do to more powerfully drive the performance of your employees than to carefully consider your incentive plans. If you think yours are working beautifully and don’t need any attention, check in with Steven Levitt to see how easily they go astray. (more…)
The big New York law firms continue to amuse and titillate. Again, one of the firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, is offering $80,000 to incoming lawyers to defer their starting dates for a year. Cravath is also requiring current summer associates who are offered full-time jobs to accept $65,000 to…