No company is static. Change takes place everyday but some changes are more more visible and have greater wide-reaching implications on stakeholders. Indeed whether change is in the guise of CEOs and management, takeover bids and M&A, business process reeendineering or new technology, or even office re-location, managing change is fraught with challenges and concerns. Change begets more change – planned or anticipated as a consequence of corporate moves or unexpectedly. Companies who do not communicate their position and intention to their employees lose a valuable source of support and strength. [...]

Conversation on an Airplane
“I’m planning on being a fireman.  But if my brother gets killed in Iraq, I’m going to enlist and go take vengeance over there.”  Thus spoke the young man in the seat …

What would you have to live for if you lost both legs above the knee, had just one functional hand, and couldn’t close your eyes without experiencing intense emotional and physical anguish?
I don’t ask …

As someone who is passionately interested in how technology changes lives, I was intrigued by Gerald P. Koocher’s article “Twenty-First Century Challenges for Psychology.”
Koocher, former President of the American Psychological Association, argues that foreseeable technological …

Watching television is probably the most common pastime in the world. On average Americans spend about five hours per day watching TV, while Europeans are glued to the box for over three and a half hours daily.

But not without a little guilt. Most of us realize that the good life doesn’t involve daily doses of Big Brother. Now University of Zurich researcher Bruno Frey has confirmed that sneaking suspicion: watching TV makes us less happy.

Preparing for a workshop I was running last week, I e-mailed the 20 or so participants with briefing notes and added a PS to the warn them that I would be hobbling on crutches as I had “recently broken my leg whilst roller-blading in the Andes with a bunch of Brazilian dancers.”

Two delightful people initially believed my explanation to which I could only say, “I really wish I were the kind of guy that could be true of.” [...]

Children give wonderful gifts. Our boys have given Teresa and I an appreciation for baseball, “stop for the fun of it”, archery, and lots of great times reading to them at night. Both of them enjoyed being read to long after they no longer needed that reassurance and ritual to go to sleep. Toward the end of our time reading to each of them, we were reading books that we all enjoyed, but they could not get read for themselves. The earliest of the Harry Potter books was such a book for my younger son. [...]

My boss has told me that he has never seen a performance review system that he liked. While it almost seems like blasphemy to admit this, I have been uncomfortable with the way corporations evaluate performance throughout my career in Human Resources. I have written and helped implement several approaches to performance evaluation over the years. Each approach was a variation on the common theme that is most widely accepted among corporations. [...]

What about more “formal” forms of recognition, such as trips and conferences, that companies use to reward top performers? Do these programs positively impact employee engagement and productivity, too? I have anecdotal evidence from one company that they do – especially when a company rethinks who attends these events.

You wouldn’t use a paperclip to try to open a can. So why are you trying to use past skills to get a future job? Suppose I told you that with a small change in mindset, you could turn the paperclip into a can opener. Suppose I showed you a tool that would give you leverage toward getting the kind of job you really want.