(These excerpts are from FORTUNE Magazine's April 13, 2009 edition)
"If you train people to work in different countries and businesses, you develop a deep bench"
'Lafley himself oversees the development of the top 150 employees.'
'All executives teach at the training center [...] and hold weeklong "colleges" for employees entering new levels. A willingness to train others ultimately determines who advances: If your direct reports aren't ready, neither are you. "A manager who isn't good at developing others doesn't attract the best talent [to be on his team]."
Showing posts with label Leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leaders. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Alan Mulally - Ford's Comeback Kid
(These excerpts are from FORTUNE Magazine's May 25, 2009 edition)
Although I am not necessarily a Ford fan, Alan Mulally's words made him one of my leadership heroes. I was glad to see that there are some executives out there that know how to lead in the new millenium.
Here are some of his quotes from the article:
STRATEGIC PLAN:
"Communicate, communicate, communicate. Everyone has to know the plan, its status, and areas that need special attention".
COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK:
"This is a huge enterprise, and the magic is, everyone knows the plan."
RESPECT:
"They don't bring their big books anymore because I'm not going to grind them with as many questions as I can to humiliate them."
ACCOUNTABILITY:
"We'll see them next week. We don't take action - I'm going to see you next week."
FOCUS:
"If somebody starts to talk or they don't respect each other, the meeting just stops. They know I've removed vice presidents because they couldn't stop talking because they thought they were so damn important."
TRUST:
"They can either work together, or they can come see me. They're not here. There's nobody outside. So they must be working together."
Although I am not necessarily a Ford fan, Alan Mulally's words made him one of my leadership heroes. I was glad to see that there are some executives out there that know how to lead in the new millenium.
Here are some of his quotes from the article:
STRATEGIC PLAN:
"Communicate, communicate, communicate. Everyone has to know the plan, its status, and areas that need special attention".
COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK:
"This is a huge enterprise, and the magic is, everyone knows the plan."
RESPECT:
"They don't bring their big books anymore because I'm not going to grind them with as many questions as I can to humiliate them."
ACCOUNTABILITY:
"We'll see them next week. We don't take action - I'm going to see you next week."
FOCUS:
"If somebody starts to talk or they don't respect each other, the meeting just stops. They know I've removed vice presidents because they couldn't stop talking because they thought they were so damn important."
TRUST:
"They can either work together, or they can come see me. They're not here. There's nobody outside. So they must be working together."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
(Online) Collaboration - The Next Generation Company
John Chambers - President and CEO of Cisco Systems - recently gave a wonderful speech at MIT about how Cisco is able to get to market so quickly, innovate at an incredible rate, and enjoy and maintain their growth and profitability figures.
I urge any manager, project manager, team leader, facilitator, etc. to sit and listen through it.
I found it here:
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/building-a-next-generation-company/
If you think a one hour video is too long, start to whet your appetite here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/131/revolution-in-san-jose.html
After listening and reading, be aware of an article in the April 2009 edition of Harvard Business Review that cautions excessive use of collaboration. 'When Internal Collaboration Is Bad for Your Company' by Morten T. Hansen:
Collaboration comes with several types of cost:
1. The cost to have the infrastructure to perform collaboration - online or traditional. You may want a company internal version of facebook of some sort. The geeks at Cisco were obviously able to easily put something like that together themselves.
2. The time of employees spent on blogging and collaborating online or in meetings is a cost to the company.
3. There is an opportunity cost as the time spent on collaboration could be spent on doing the things they are originally expected to do.
All this needs to be outweighed by the benefit/return from collaborating. The author calls it the 'Collaboration Premium'.
"IT'S A MISTAKE to underestimate collaboration costs in the hope that collaboration can be mandated or will naturally improve during the course of a project."
I urge any manager, project manager, team leader, facilitator, etc. to sit and listen through it.
I found it here:
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/building-a-next-generation-company/
If you think a one hour video is too long, start to whet your appetite here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/131/revolution-in-san-jose.html
-----
After listening and reading, be aware of an article in the April 2009 edition of Harvard Business Review that cautions excessive use of collaboration. 'When Internal Collaboration Is Bad for Your Company' by Morten T. Hansen:
Collaboration comes with several types of cost:
1. The cost to have the infrastructure to perform collaboration - online or traditional. You may want a company internal version of facebook of some sort. The geeks at Cisco were obviously able to easily put something like that together themselves.
2. The time of employees spent on blogging and collaborating online or in meetings is a cost to the company.
3. There is an opportunity cost as the time spent on collaboration could be spent on doing the things they are originally expected to do.
All this needs to be outweighed by the benefit/return from collaborating. The author calls it the 'Collaboration Premium'.
"IT'S A MISTAKE to underestimate collaboration costs in the hope that collaboration can be mandated or will naturally improve during the course of a project."
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