Talent Management – Page 5 – www.exkalibur.com

Leadership = Balance & Harmony

Urban Meyer is returning as the football coach at the University of Florida, much to the delight of Florida fans everywhere. He has a remarkable track record wherever he’s been and with him, Florida won two national championships in 2006 and 2008. His winning record of .842 is the highest among active coaches with at least 5 years experience (at a Football Bowl subdivision).

So what, you say? Well, Urban Meyer is the poster child for the out of balance work life that earned him an ambulance trip to the hospital last December.
The good news? (more…)

3 Simple Keys to Productive Meetings

A recent NY Times interview with Dan Rosensweig, CEO of Chegg, a firm that rents textbooks online and by mail, brought some valuable but simple tips about meeting discipline to mind.

1. Leave technology on the other side of the door.

Be present, engage in hearty conversation.
Phones, texting, communicating outside of the room is not invited or allowed. (Yeah, I know … you’re thinking … I don’t do this, do I?)
Seriously?

(more…)

Night Owl or Early Bird?

Early birds - those of you who get up early - tend to be more proactive, more successful in business ... while the night owls ... that's me ... have been shown to be smarter, more creative, funnier and more outgoing ... not so bad, huh? HBR recently published some…

Empower to the People!

I'm a big believer in the Ritz Carlton's program of providing a $2,000 allowance to empower their employees to enhance the "Guest Experience" ... and I think it's noteworthy that the Cadillac division of General Motors is applying this concept to strengthen their relationship with potential Cadillac customers. It's not…

Change is exhausting!

Many of us accept that the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. Our world is buffeted on all sides by change … kids grow up, technology abounds, friends move away, the list is endless.
Dan Heath at Fast Company describes a recent experience with subjects who were offered either chocolate chip cookies … or radishes. (If you’ve even been cut from a sports team, you’ll know how the radishes felt!). You can also see a short video there explaining the experiment. (more…)

It’s not the person

Fast Company recently carried a brief piece which described how what appears to be a personal shortcoming may obfuscate a problem situation. In psychology, they call it the Fundamental Attribution Error but the example they used is particularly poignant for many situations we've all seen.Have you experienced situations that seemed…

Any control freaks out there?

Those of you who are willing to admit … or deserving … of wearing this crown have probably stumbled down the staircase more than once trying to exert your control over every fiber of the carpet beneath your feet.
Researchers have found that when test subjects are even subliminally exposed to the name of a person they believe is “controlling”, they unconsciously do the OPPOSITE of hard work. It seems that people value their freedom “so much so that even an unconscious memory of a controlling person stimulates a behavioral reaction.”
Combine this with The Productivity Paradox and the work done at Sony Pictures to focus more on employee energy management rather than time management, (more…)

Conference Calls not working so well?

Fast Company recently published a blog post called 10 Rules for Effective Conference Calls, which sounds about right … and I think you’ll agree that you’ve heard … or did … or thought … these same things yourself.

OK, now let’s move to slide 5. Can everyone see this slide?

(Slide with 12 rows of text appears. Jill proceeds to read all 12 lines of text.)

(Dead silence – everyone is on mute, reading mail, playing Solitaire or checking news, sports, and weather…)

How about this one? (more…)

CA seed money drying up

No surprise that California's continuing budget problems resulted in a significant drop in funds available through the California Small Business Loan Guarantee program. Why? Because a chunk of its trust fund was used last year to help plug the budget gap ... more gamesmanship by our elected reps in Sacramento.…