Posts Tagged ‘talent’

 Employee communications will undoubtedly be the hot topic of the next few years, especially in the reputation space. As leaders come to terms with the fact that employees can be their best advocates and worst badvocates, internal communications will rise to a new level. That’s a good thing because I think leader-to-employee communications is more immature than the art and science of external communications.  With all the technology we have, you’d think that employee communications would be more advanced. But it is not.  Research by Dov Seidman and the Boston Research Group surveyed thousands of employees at all levels. One of the more startling  findings was that 27% of bosses think that employees are inspired by their firm, when in fact only 4% of employees agree.  And 41% of bosses say their firms award people based on values rather than financial performance.  Only 14% of employees agree. Bosses have  much to do to get employees inspired and willing to go the distance to make their firms successful and a place others want to work at. Talent, leadership and culture are drivers of reputation. Time to inspire before it is too late.

   Just downloaded parts of Korn/Ferry’s new quarterly magazine that was just launched for CEOs, board members and other top officers. The magazine is written by Korn/Ferry consultants along with renowned journalists from the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Economist, Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal, as well as distinguished authors and academics. It is a handsomely produced publication with a broad collection of articles.  The articles on talent and leadership range from succession planning at McDonald’s, corporate governance, crisis leadership from the CEO of American Express, and an article on Hong Kong based trading company Li & Fung Group.  As I thumbed through the pages, I even found business cartoons which I am not embarrassed to say are always fun and uplifting. The articles are serious, informative and timely.  I read the article by Glenn Rifkin on Warren Bennis titled The CEO Whisperer.  Perfect title for Bennis who is a legend in management circles.  Bennis is quoted as saying that one of the things lacking in most companies today is time to reflect on what went wrong and why.  I fully agree that there are not enough debriefings nowadays. I remarked in my book on reputation recovery how the Army has After Action Reviews in order to make sure that mistakes are not made twice. Similarly, The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates airline crashes and other transportation accidents with a focus on finding the cause – not who is at fault.  

I intend to read the rest as the week goes on. Might find something on reputation that will be useful for my work. If not, I will make a suggestion that they consider it when the next quarter rolls around.