General Electric did it! Microsoft did it! And so did Adobe! Each of these companies canned the age old format of Performance Appraisals. GE has a reputation of having the yearly Performance Appraisal and then ranking all staff and letting those who are the lowest 10% fired. They got rid of this formal forced ranking about 10 years ago, however, they did carry on with Performance Appraisals. Continue reading →

Sony dropped the ball when it placed a marketing specialist as the head of IT. The rumor is key positions in IT leadership roles were filled due to office politics rather than exhibited skills. There is nothing unusual about that, however, with little knowledge of the IT field, one exposes one’s organization to a number of risks. In Sony’s case, we understand they were hacked! Continue reading →

Let’s call him Henry – he is a great guy! He is gregarious, hardworking, educated and thoughtful of others. What more could an employer ask for? As it turns out, plenty!

Henry is new to his position. He studies his role, listens attentively to direction and asks pertinent questions. Yet, there is more. As I said, he is well educated and as such he generally adds to the topic of conversation and his ideas often show great insight. Continue reading →