Stop Hiring for Culture. It’s Harming Your Business.

Stop Hiring for Culture. It’s Harming Your Business.

How many times have you been in an interview process when someone asks the question: “Will they fit in here?” Is there an objective way to answer that? The question of fit is based on careful business choices. It’s based on emotion, and we all know hiring isn’t a decision we should make emotionally. And yet…so many business leaders do.

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Should We Be Hiring a Chief People Officer?

Should We Be Hiring a Chief People Officer?

94% of senior executives think it’s important to focus on the growth and development of their HR executives so they’re ready to face the future. Of course, if you don’t have an HR executive on your team, you can’t focus on developing them. That’s the time to begin thinking about hiring a Chief People Officer.

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Is an Interim Executive Right for Your Company?

Is an Interim Executive Right for Your Company?

An interim executive temporarily takes a management position in an organization to help the existing leadership solve problems and set the future, permanent leader up for success. Knowing whether an interim executive is right for your organization depends on your current needs and your assumptions about the future.

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Gen Z Isn’t Going Away, and We Shouldn’t Want Them To

Gen Z Isn’t Going Away, and We Shouldn’t Want Them To

It’s time to stop the generation war and recognize that we’re all looking for the same thing and that our workplaces are better when they include the perspectives of all the generations. During the pandemic, people started to look at their lives differently, at their jobs differently. Employers looked at their organizations differently. And many of us have come out of the pandemic in the same, new place.

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Is it Business or Is it Personal? When Friends and Colleagues Collide

Is it Business or Is it Personal? When Friends and Colleagues Collide

Given the bonds that can develop in the trenches of an early startup or young business, it’s not uncommon for business relationships to veer into friendship. What happens when a company grows beyond a person that helped start it? And what do you do when you’re the one faced with that dilemma — do you choose the business or your friend? Or is there some way to choose both?

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Psychological Safety Isn’t a 4-Letter Word

Psychological Safety Isn’t a 4-Letter Word

If you’ve turned your nose up at the concept of psychological safety because, frankly, you’re getting tired of trying to figure out every new buzzword, I’m encouraging you to rethink. Creating a workplace culture where people feel safe to be themselves and feel respected for their contributions is critical. You’ll lose talent if you don’t.

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What Is Your Coaching Style: Coaching Your Team

What Is Your Coaching Style: Coaching Your Team

What coaching style do you need to use with each of your team members? Just like you probably have a coaching style you’re most comfortable with, each of them also has a style of being coached that’s most effective for them. You have to coach the people who report to you, so as a leader and a coach, you may have to get comfortable with different styles of coaching.

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The Coaching Process: Coaching Your Team

The Coaching Process: Coaching Your Team

If you’ve worked with a good coach, you know how transformational the process can be. Your employees need that experience as well. They’ll grow, be more engaged employees, and become happier. Your business will be all the better for it.

If you’ve just seen yourself as their manager, you’re missing out on a big opportunity. Actually, a big requirement. Now more than ever — when people are changing jobs at an alarming rate and everyone’s reeling from all the uncertainty in our world — you need to keep your employees engaged.

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When to Hire Your First Employee (and the One After That)

When to Hire Your First Employee (and the One After That)

Cost is the biggest reservation we hear from founders and entrepreneurs who are contemplating their first hire. Affordability is obviously a critical part of the hiring analysis — and there’s a lot more to it. Whether you’re ready to hire and (perhaps the bigger question) who you should hire depends on multiple factors.

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When Was the Last Time You Did a SWOT Analysis?

When Was the Last Time You Did a SWOT Analysis?

If you’re in business, you’ve heard of a SWOT analysis. You’ve probably done one — maybe more than one. When did you last do a SWOT analysis for your organization? Unless you’ve just been doing some strategic planning, it’s likely been awhile. We see businesses wait too long between SWOT analysis sessions. They trudge along under old conceptions of their strengths or weaknesses and fail to effectively respond to the changes around them.

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How to Develop Your Core Values (And Implement Them) in Six Steps

How to Develop Your Core Values (And Implement Them) in Six Steps

Every organization has a culture, whether it was created intentionally or not. Developing and implementing your values puts you in control of that culture. Most importantly, it helps you identify who’s aligned with it and who’s not. Here’s how to create your core values — not just some words that you put on a wall or a website — but the actual tenets that underpin your organization’s culture.

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What Does a Good Business Coaching Relationship Look Like?

What Does a Good Business Coaching Relationship Look Like?

The concept of a coach used to be reserved for athletes. Now you can hire a coach to help you with everything from weight loss or parenting to public speaking and career transitions. So with all these coaches running around, how do you know what’s a worthwhile investment of your time and money?

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What Is An Organizational Assessment?

What Is An Organizational Assessment?

For many young or small companies, managing processes and meeting goals is pretty straightforward. They have a team of three or four people committed to the mission. They’ve defined roles and responsibilities. There are few barriers to communication. Then they start to grow. Now they’re a team of 15 or 20, and they’re not sure why exactly, but things aren’t going so well. That’s where an organizational assessment can help.

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Results Aren’t Achieved When Values Don’t Align (Lesson #6 of 8 Lessons Growing 8 Companies)

Results Aren’t Achieved When Values Don’t Align (Lesson #6 of 8 Lessons Growing 8 Companies)

In 2005, I was working as a consultant, doing some due diligence on software for a startup. The company, founded by two patent attorneys, was attempting to create an online marketplace for swapping books, music, movies, and video games—back when those were all physical objects that needed to be physically traded. The founders had patented their ideas and written hundreds of pages of specs. They’d already hired, fired, and had sued one software development firm. When the second firm they’d hired went past budget on a fixed price contract before completing the software, the founders reached out to me.

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How You Can Harness Workplace Conflict to Help Your Organization Thrive

How You Can Harness Workplace Conflict to Help Your Organization Thrive

Conflict is inevitable. Everyone is different—different backgrounds, different scripts, different personalities, and different goals. Difference creates conflict. If we’ve learned anything from the last few months of civil unrest, it’s that embracing differences in our lives and in our organizations is critical. Workplace conflict will happen. By treating it as an opportunity for growth, we’ll help ourselves, our organizations, and our employees.

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