Are star employees overrated?
A few years ago, Bain conducted a major piece of research looking for the holy grail of management consultancy: what makes an excellent firm. They found stars – employees who made an outsized contribution to performance – in abundance, typically in highly specialised and creative roles. Star corporate lawyers performed 12 times better than the […]
If Your Values Don’t Fit, You’re Toast
In part one of this blog, we looked at why candidate fit is so important when hiring for growth, how it can turn into an excuse for excluding people, and how most of the time problems with a candidate’s fit can be solved with a little open-mindedness and flexibility. It’s a different matter when you’re […]
Why Candidate Fit Matters More Than Talent
We’ve all known candidates who sounded ferociously impressive at interview, who had a glittering record of success in well-respected firms, and who then fell flat on their faces when they joined yours. While it’s tempting to assume that these people were paper tigers, who just seemed more talented than they were, it’s improbable that someone […]
How to benefit from the ‘Great Resignation’
You’ll have heard the rather apocalyptic stories, mostly coming from the US, about the ‘Great Resignation’, an apparent exodus of employees whose priorities have changed over the pandemic. Some of the stats are appropriately scary. Globally, 41% of workers are planning to leave their jobs over the next year, according to the World Economic Forum. […]
Is your middle management holding you back?
It is true that the very best leaders don’t make all the decisions; they don’t have all the ideas. Instead, they inspire and empower, unleashing the energies of their people to supercharge growth and performance. But the inspirational model of leadership is hardly guaranteed to succeed, not least because some people don’t want to be […]
6 habits for intentional leadership
Great leaders don’t just say the first thing that comes into their heads, or lose themselves whimsically down rabbit holes of distraction. They act with clarity, purpose and intent. The challenge is that leaders are always busy – there will always be more to do than your time and resources will allow – and busy […]
Why Self-Confidence is Making You Fail
*Originally published Nov 2020, updated Aug 2021 The Greeks ditched the idea of the flawless hero at least 2,500 years ago, and not just because it made for bad fiction. Real people inevitably make mistakes, even if they don’t always recognise them. For some reason though, we still gravitate towards the ideal, from Churchill to […]
Hybrid working: How to get the best from video calls
Originally published Feb 2021, updated Aug 2021 Pretty much every business in the country owes Dr Herbert Ives a debt of gratitude. The American scientist, who is perhaps best noted for his work in the 1930s on special relativity, led the team at Bell Labs that pioneered the world’s first video telephony system. It […]
Making time: A very brief guide for CEOs
Students of time management will know the Eisenhower Matrix, which plots tasks by urgency on one axis and importance on the other. The simple genius behind this approach – popularised by the American General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower – is not that you do what’s urgent and important, and ditch what’s unimportant and […]
Gratitude: An underestimated leadership tool
Leaders in high-growth companies will know that you can’t take talent for granted. Good people always have a choice. They don’t have to work for you; they certainly don’t have to go above and beyond. A simple ‘thank you’ when they do so can be remarkably powerful, particularly when motivation might otherwise be flagging. It’s […]
