Business Resources (Articles, Book Reviews, Blog)
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Articles
Why Finding the Best Candidate Can Still Feel Like
Searching For a Needle in a Haystack
By Kira Bruno, President FORTIS Resource Partners, December 7, 2009
Where are all the good people? Despite the overwhelming number of unemployed applicants, finding the best candidate is still difficult for many companies.
Almost half of the managers surveyed by the 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations report revealed that a shortage in top talent is their biggest hiring challenge.
Avoiding the pitfalls of the Hiring Process
Jeff Wertheimer and Brandon Sylvia are labor attorneys at Rutan & Tucker. The have graciously provided the following article. "The hiring of employees is an exciting stage in the growth of any business. Unfortunately, this process is fraught with pitfalls for the unwary. Various state and federal laws regulate the inquiries an employer may make of an applicant during the application process, the interview, and after a job offer has been made (such as background checks or medical exams). The complexity of these laws is compounded by the fact that some questions can only be properly asked at certain stages of the hiring process. Additionally, California allows employers to be held liable for negligent hiring – i.e., hiring an individual who the employer knew or should have known posed a danger to others." Read More . . .
An Economy Driven Sales Reset
By Dave Kinnear
It is my opinion that the present economic situation is best described as a “reset in values” rather than arguing over whether or not it is a “recession” or “depression.” We may well see a generation of people whose values are redefined by their experiences during these times much as we have seen the depression generation’s values. Read More . . .
Great Business Partnerships and How to Create Them
by Barri Carian
“It has become increasingly difficult to achieve great success in today’s complex business environment by forging ahead on your own.” When I wrote that sentence in 1999, partnerships and strategic alliances were starting to gain traction as viable business models. Very little was written on the subject other than the legal and tax aspects. It was extremely difficult to find data showing how many business enterprises were partnerships, what the success rate was, and the factors contributing to success and failure of these collaborations. Today, ten years later, it still is. Read More . . .
Book Reviews
Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King, & Halee Fischer-Wright
Tribal Leadership is perhaps the most significant leadership development book I’ve read this year. Logan, King and Fischer-Wright have written an outstanding book tracing the path of organizational and leadership excellence through an understanding of completion with past events and experiences. They explain the theory of Tribal Stages in the organization and how people move through them.
The authors break personal, organizational and leadership into five Tribal Stages, simply labeled 1 through 5. Organizations comprise small towns or Tribes. Like towns, the people in the tribe are all different, but they have more in common than not. Tribes help people survive the unknown. “Tribal Leaders focus their efforts on building the tribe—or, more precisely, upgrading the tribal culture.” That is how Tribal Leadership works: “the leader upgrades the tribe as the tribe embraces the leader. Tribes and leaders create each other.”
The Three Laws of Performance, by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan
Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan have written a book that changes the game when it comes to taking your company to the next level. They have done so by pointing out how to clear the past from defining your future and instead allowing you to create the future you desire. Sounds a bit “over the top” and it is not. If we as business leaders can take our companies through this long and difficult process, then we have the opportunity to finally move beyond the normal company dysfunction and have everyone on the same page.
Slay the E-mail Monster, by Lynn Coffman and Michael Valentine
There is much said about productivity improvement these days. Some say that we are going through a false sense of productivity improvement because workers are afraid to not work extra hard when they observe their colleagues being let go, and friends who have been out of work for more than a year. So they knuckle down and do all that extra work at home, long hours at the office and are on 24/7/365 due to their smart phone connectivity.
How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins
The silent creep of impending doom is the title Collins chose for the first chapter in this excellent review of how companies go astray. As usual, Collins did an in depth research to discover why companies fail and how that failure is shaped. He determined that there are five stages of decline for an organization:
- Stage 1 is characterized by hubris born of success
- Stage 2 is marked by undisciplined pursuit of more
- Stage 3 is the peak of ascendancy and characterized by denial of risk and peril
- Stage 4 begins the precipitous decline with the organization grasping for salvation
- Stage 5 is the final capitulation to being irrelevant or accepting death
The Imposter? by Kip Kreiling
Kreiling starts his memoir setting a scene in the relatively recent past. Then reminisces about how he has gotten to where he is today. He frequently "flashes back" to his teenage years and interweaves stories about his mother, his own troubles and how he uses the lessons he learned to move himself off of the path to destruction and on to a meaningful life. The important thing is that he brings us along with him. The story is compelling and Kreiling writes in a clear, straight forward manner.
e-Riches 2.0 by Scott Fox
Normally, I don't win things when there are drawings for prizes. The day I attended the Technology Council of Southern California for a seminar on Internet Marketing was an exception. I thoroughly enjoyed the seminar given by Mr. Scott Fox, and threw my business card in the hat for a drawing. As luck would have it, I won an autographed copy of his latest book, e-Riches 2.0. That was definitely my lucky day.
Fox makes it abundantly clear that internet marketing is in our future if we expect to be in business. More importantly, he shares his experience in the field of Internet Marketing where he has been very successful. He give practical and clear advice for the layperson and avoids the “geek speak” to which we are often subjected by those who wish to impress us and separate us from some of our profits. Read the complete review . . .
Drive, by Daniel Pink
Daniel Pink has hit this one out of the park, again! Finally, someone has connected the dots on motivation, and why our system doesn't work. We’ve been starring at those dots for decades. Pink point out that, for all practical purposes, management hasn’t changed in a 100 years. Leaders and managers cannot motivate employees; not really. People motivate themselves, it’s internal. Leaders and managers can only inspire people and provide an environment that allows them the full range of intrinsic motivation wherever possible. Read More . . .
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell has once again hit a home run. This book is a compendium of articles, some written for the New Yorker Magazine, available on Gladwell’s web site, and I believe it will be another best selling book.
Gladwell’s unique way of viewing and interpreting data reveals truths about our society which tend to “blow away” the myths we tell ourselves. He takes us on wild rides, as usual, with seemingly disparate stories intertwined to make an incredibly useful point, debunk an urban legend or make us think in a totally new way. Reading Gladwell is like putting on a new set of prescription lenses over myopic eyes. Read more . . .
Bounce by Keith McFarland
The subtitle of this book is “The art of turning tough times into triumph,” and could not be timelier. Calling the 2008 and 2009 “tough times” could be the understatement of the decade. In the preface, McFarland states as a universal truth that, “It’s often during life’s most difficult times that we discover our most critical hidden strengths and that we forge our most important capabilities.” Certainly we can use some strengths going into thus new decade – hidden or otherwise. But what causes that resilience, that ability to bounce back? Read more . . .
First, Best or Different by John Bradley Jackson
At the time of this writing, John Bradley Jackson is the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at California State University in Fullerton (CSUF). I have had the pleasure of working with him and his students at the center; a wonderful experience.
Jackson writes in a conversational style that is easy to read and to understand. His grasp of the need for focused marketing along with his up to date knowledge of how technology has changed our ability to market, will be invaluable to both new and experienced marketers. The layout of the book is also simple, comprising some 106 short chapters, some but one page, making it easy to read in "spurts" if you must and also making it easy to get back to information you want to review. Read more . . .
Reframing Change, by Jean Kantambu Latting and V. Jean Ramsey
I have been asked many times if it’s possible to change the corporate culture of a company. After discussing a definition of what corporate culture is – It’s the way things get done around here – we generally conclude that if you can accomplish any difficult change in a corporate environment, then you can change the culture as well.
Latting and Ramsey give us a tested framework for initiating change and they take away the excuse that someone else or some external force has to be responsible for effecting that change. As we all suspect but are reluctant to admit, change begins with us. The good news is that Reframing Change documents that it is possible to change even the most ingrained habits. We can do that if we’re willing to challenge our beliefs and align with our own values.
Read More . . .
More reviews
Plunder, By Steven Greenhut
Friends With Benefits, By Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo
The Dream Manager, By Matthew Kelly
Creating Competitive Advantage, By Jaynie L. Smith
The Deciding Factor, By Larry Rosenberger and John Nash with Ann Graham
Cost Recovery, By Richard B. Lanza
Find Loss Revenue, By various authors
The Triple Bottom Line, By Anderw Savitz
Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs, By Berman and Knight
How to Measure Anything, By Douglas Hubbard
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, By Marshall Goldsmith