New Blog

I now post on a group blog called: Time to Keep Score

Bad Idea

At least I can entertain people...

Update

In case you haven't noticed I'm falling way behind in posting anything interesting/original. It isn't that I'm not having interesting thoughts in my head, it is just that I'm a)too tired to write about them and b)unsure that they are interesting to my readers. Some people think that a blog is just something where you can put down any random thought as they occur, but a lot more thought goes into it than that. I'm constantly running things through my head and thinking whether it would make an interesting blog post or if I can put it in such a way as to be interesting.

I will say this though, I think I finished my ramp up time last week. I told myself when I started that I need to be able to pick things up and be producing by the end of the 4th week. I think I started being productive around the 3rd day into my fourth week so I was a little ahead of schedule. That is about how long it took me to see how the business I support makes money, what the key issues are, and how HR is leveraged(I hate that word) to get things done. Since I'm only in the role for 9 months total I figured I'd have to be productive faster so as to make it worth my boss's time. Now I'm spending this week meeting with all sorts of people outside my business. People with similar jobs to figure out how they are successful and people in different businesses to figure out how they make money in their lines. Busy times for me, but it should pay off as I build up my base of understanding and base of support.

I'm on a roll

Salary

Busy

I've been pretty busy this week with activities. We went into the city for dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Only 35 dollars and we got filet mignon, a side dish, salad, and dessert. Not bad. Work is getting pretty interesting as I complete my first month, I should have some thoughts soon about it. Here is a video to watch while you wait.



Ok so they totally lose composure but it reminded me of someone at work so I had to post it.

In news that won't get reported

Looks like Global Warming isn't affecting the arctic as much as they thought.

New data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic waters north of the Svalbard archipelago.

BarentsObserver sounds like a big oil funded think tank though, so maybe they are just lying/distorting the truth. Until Al Gore says it, I won't believe it.

Good to ?

Most MBAs read or hear about 2 books, Good to Great and Built to Last. Picking companies in retrospect is fun, but it turns out the future doesn't always look like the past. Here is a post from freakonomics regarding this particular case.

Talent Pipeline

The topic that is on everyone's mind in corporate America these days is talent development. Particularly of interest is the issue of the pipeline of talent. For a long time I've wondered why they can't just plug someone into a management position and they will figure out the job and carry on. It turns out that isn't the case, management is very complicated and I hope to illustrate the complexities by explaining the management development path that is the focus of current research.

The model you see before you is called the crossroads model. In short it says that each of the different planks represent stages of different management styles. There is a big difference between managing yourself and managing others, most people can see and recognize that. What isn't often talked about though is the huge difference in managing mangers over managing others. Now instead of helping other people work on parts of your ultimate project/responsibility, you are managing people who have teams that they are responsible for. The focus shifts more to coaching and developing your managers as managers instead of individual performers.

The change in mindset as you move up the ladder is huge. The critical factor to companies though is that if their leaders miss any of those steps up the ladder it will ultimately lead to a weak pipeline. Or if they promote people without teaching them the difference between managing managers and managing a line of business. Some people aren't capable of making that next turn in management, are there signals to see whether the employee is ready for the turn? This is something that is being talked about on the peripherals of my company, but I can see where implementation of this thinking while costly, could revolutionize the proper development of future leaders.

Isn't that way people hire MBAs, so they can come in and tell them how with one simple adaptation of a model they could change their whole business profitability and continue to exist for another 150 years? I thought so, I'll be sure to write this up and send it up the chain...

Burger King Chips

We picked these up at Sam's Club this weekend. They are pretty tasty, even Link loves em. It is like they somehow packaged the flavor of their delicious fries and put them into a healthier-for-you potato chip (that tells you how unhealthy fries actually are, when potato chips are the healthier alternative).

They have a nice light texture so we don't have to worry about Lincoln having problems eating them. He even started saying "Chips" in response to the purchase.