Tag Archives: Learning

Why your ‘personality’ is getting in the way of a promotion

Posted on

by Marisa Taylor

One of my “favorite” – ie just plain awful – recent stories to expose the staggering tone deafness around gender parity came courtesy of John Greenhouse, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was sharing some supposedly helpful advice for women seeking equality in the business world.

In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Greenhouse suggested that in order for women to rise above unconscious gender bias online, they ought to go by their initials and hide the fact that they’re women. Female readers weren’t so thrilled by the suggestion that they should be the ones responsible for fixing male bias against them.

For better advice, look to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where 48% of the incoming freshmen at the School of Computer Science are women, far greater than the national average of 18%. Rather than urging women to change their behavior, the school changed the culture by launching a faculty-run mentorship group for female computer science students, which “opens doors for women across campus through networking ”, according to the college newspaper. That has attracted increasingly more women to apply to the program. Continue reading →

Give Your Team More-Effective Positive Feedback

Posted on

Christine-Porath by Christine Porath

Research shows that one of the best ways to help employees thrive is to give them feedback. It’s one of the primary levers leaders have to increase a sense of learning and vitality. Giving your direct reports regular updates on personal performance, as well as on how the business is doing, helps them feel valued. Negative or directive feedback provides guidance, leading people to become, over time, more certain about their behavior and more confident in their competence.

Highlighting an employee’s strengths can help generate a sense of accomplishment and motivation. A Gallup survey found that 67% of employees whose managers focused on their strengths were fully engaged in their work, as compared to only 31% of employees whose managers focused on their weaknesses. IBM’s WorkTrends survey of over 19,000 workers in 26 countries, across industries and thousands of organizations, revealed that the engagement level of employees who receive recognition is almost three times higher than the engagement level of those who do not. The same survey showed that employees who receive recognition are also far less likely to quit. Recognition has been shown to increase happiness at work in general and is tied to cultural and business results, such as job satisfaction and retention. Continue reading →

Avoiding rifts within company leadership

Posted on

by Autumn Adeigbo

Do you find it as disappointing as I do when you hear that a company’s co founders have gone their separate ways?

This is especially true when the leadership has put in sweat equity and gotten through the hard stuff: pooling resources, boot-strapping, finding the right funding via investors or loans, hiring and training employees, building a board of directors, and making the company profitable. However sad, these separations within leadership happen all the time. And like a familial divorce- it can be traumatizing for all parties when a company’s foundation crumbles.

So why does it happen so often? Why are some company founders together for decades while others split a year after deciding to work together? I recently experienced a potential rift within my company’s leadership that led me to ask myself this question. It made me think about the subject seriously- because the disagreement I witnessed had the potential to divide the leadership within my company with enduring effects. Continue reading →

What is top talent and how is that identified?

Posted on

 

As a part of our talent acquisition engagements, we ask our clients how they define “top talent” and how they would assess those traits in the interview process.  Reflecting on the insightful comments we hear every day, we thought there would be great value in a new blog in which senior executives/thought leaders share their “Take on Talent.”

This is the eighth in a series of blogs/interviews with senior executives who are thought leaders in the areas of Talent Acquisition, Career Development and Leadership who will share their perspectives on this ever present question.

 

mendez-eagar-largeTracy Mendez is the Senior VP & GM in Global Accounts, covering the Industrial & Retail Sectors at Xerox.  She leads a team of Managing Directors responsible for delivering revenue / OP growth through the full portfolio solutions (BPO and Document Outsourcing) to Xerox’s marquis clients.  The evolved sales and operations model supports strategic client partnerships focused on solving industry challenges. Tracy’s consistent record of driving revenue growth and improving profitability is underpinned by an approach that incorporates innovation & transformation.

Prior to this role, Tracy designed and implemented standardized Strategic Pursuit Centers worldwide.  Her international experience is derived from running Major accounts Xerox Global Services in Developing Markets, driving 45% growth to $415M. Continue reading →

Listening is an overlooked leadership tool

Posted on

110-Melissa_Daimlerby Melissa Daimler

 

“What do you think?”

I ask this question a lot. My team knows that when they come to me with a question, this is likely the question I’ll come back with first. Sometimes I even preface it with, “I don’t know.” As leaders in our organizations, it’s up to us to coach colleagues and our employees through finding that answer. More often than not, when I ask this question, my team has a better answer than I do — or one that I hadn’t thought about before. Continue reading →