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Research: Do People Really Get Promoted to Their Level of Incompetence? | Harvard Business Review
A confirmation of The Peter Principle and how firms can manage around it: creating a structure in which top performers are rewarded with pay rather than promotion; and promoting, to managerial positions, staff who are above-average in individual contributor roles, but savvy in skillsets of leadership. - The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity | Carlo M. Cipolla
An essay by an Italian economic historian that provides an explanation for human behaviour in the world. - The Dunning-Kruger Effect Shows Why Some People Think They’re Great Even When Their Work Is Terrible | Forbes
“…many people are underperforming simply because they don’t know that they could be doing better or what really great performance looks like. It’s not that they’re necessarily being defensive, rather they just lack the knowledge. In fact, he told me that research subjects were willing to criticize their own previous poor skills once they were trained up and could see the difference between their previous poor performance and their new improved performance”. - If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? | Harvard Business Review
“…narcissistic individuals radiate ‘an image of a prototypically effective leader.’ Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader’s narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance”.
- Putt’s Law | davewentzel.com
“I really admire managers who follow the management-by-walking-around (MBWA) principle. This management philosophy is very simple: The best managers are those who leave their offices and observe. By observing they learn what the challenges are for their teams and how to help them better.
So, what I am looking for in a manager?
- He knows he is the least qualified person to make a technical decision.
- He is a facilitator. He knows how to help his technologists succeed.
- MBWA.”
Tag - business
- Adam Grant On Interviewing to Hire Trailblazers, Nonconformists and Originals | First Round Review
“By default, companies are built in the image of their founders, which is why it’s vital to proactively introduce diversity of thought… ‘What happens when startups get successful and grow is that they become more and more vulnerable to the attraction-selection-attrition cycle, where people of the same stripes are increasingly drawn to the organization, chosen by it and retained at it. The way to combat that homogeneity creep is to proactively infuse the culture with originals, who have the will and skill to think differently'”. - How to Hire | eShares
Four principles and six heuristics on hiring. Some of them are counter-intuitive, and all of them turn what we think we know about hiring on its head. - Your Company’s Culture is Who You Hire, Fire, & Promote | @DrSepah
The writer presents a powerful Performance Value Matrix based on the following with the following categories and rules: Incompetent Assholes (Fire Fast); Competent Assholes (Remediate or Separate); Incompetent Nice Guys (Manage or Move); Competent and Outstanding Nice Guys (Praise and Raise).
- The No Asshole Rule: Part 1 | HuffPost
There are myriad costs to keeping employees who engage in demeaning behaviour in an organisation: From how detrimental they are to the mental and physical health of their colleagues, to the overall undermining of learning and organisational effectiveness. - Why I Wrote The No Asshole Rule | Harvard Business Review
“My father always told me to avoid assholes at all costs, no matter how rich or powerful they might be, because I would catch their nastiness and impose it on others. I learned, as an organizational psychologist, that his advice is supported by research on ’emotional contagion’: if you work for a jerk, odds are you will become one”.
- 4 Ways to Improve Your Strategic Thinking Skills | Harvard Business Review
Think strategically by looking beyond and looking within. Take time to observe what’s going on around and you, and make time to reflect on this and synthesise your knowledge. - Great Leadership Isn’t About You | Harvard Business Review
“…leading people well isn’t about driving them, directing them, or coercing them; it is about compelling them to join you in pushing into new territory. It is motivating them to share your enthusiasm for pursuing a shared ideal, objective, cause, or mission. In essence, it is to always conduct yourself in ways that communicates to others that you believe people are always more important than things”. - What Great Managers Do Daily | Harvard Business Review
Great managers are engaged at work – in what they do and with others around them – and take the time to engage their teams, through one-on-ones and fair distribution of workloads. - Seven Surprises for New CEOs | Harvard Business Review
These “seven surprises highlight realities about the nature of leadership that are important not just for CEOs but for executives at any level and in any size organization”. An illuminating read. - Why the Best Leaders Want Their Superstar Employees to Leave | The Wall Street Journal
It may seem counter-intuitive, but there are benefits when talent flow is managed well, with allowances made for movement, instead of an insistence on talent-hoarding.