My Medium Content
Thanks for stopping by! The content here is going to be in a little flux for a while because I’m moving items and shifting some of my media creation over to Medium as a way to leverage the power of the publishing platform. I’ll still post a unique blog here and on LinkedIn from time to time, but my main focus will be on that site.
Get in touch!
pmann@educationalthinking.com
(717) 400-6266 (voicemail)
Harrisburg, PA
Make Help More -- Helpful!
If someone cares enough to notice that you need help, whether via a consultant or not, it is a better option to consider that, 1) someone cares enough to notice the need, and 2) there is an opportunity to find and fix a blind spot in your perspective. Someone like me isn’t there to force a change or otherwise stick our noses into your business; we’re there because someone feels things need to adjust but aren’t going to get better on their own.
Playing Succession Too Close
One of the overriding themes of the last few years has been how to build one's bench -- how to identify and select high-potential employees (HiPos) and would-be employees to proactively enhance the team. Within this idea includes both building skills and knowledge capabilities, as well as grooming HiPos for eventual advancement into leadership as part of a long term succession pipeline. While this article relates to all of these factors, it's main focus is on the succession component and the problems that occur when we forget to tell our HiPos that they are HiPos, and what that means.
Fair Enough?
Many organizations, especially in government or government contracting, create “fair” interview panels from a deliberately (read: legally defensible) diverse group of disinterested interviewers. These interviews follow a rigidly structured protocol – though they often use behavioral interview questions, a subject of a future post – which disallows all but the most superficial pleasantries.
Three Rules for Managing Conflicting Priorities
However, the more I thought about it and the more I considered cleaver analogies, the more I became aware that the trope – and it is surely so overused as to be a trope by now – about working in a position with multiple conflicting priorities is really an indicator deep, underlying problems in an organization’s alignment with its objectives.
How S.M.A.R.T. Are You?
Organizations strive to have something reportable – usually something “green” that looks both important and constantly successful – without any chance of failure or actually changing (i.e. improving).
Your Thinking on Millennials is Wrong
There. I said it. You are wrong. Wrong about millennials, wrong about their place in the workforce, and wrong about how you are trying to gain their attention (long enough) to work for you. Just. Plain. Wrong. On at least three counts.
Stop Right There!
There is another horrible notion going around that you can attract, hire, and retain the best people if you can just figure out how to comply with all of the applicable laws and diversity initiatives dreamed up over the last couple of years. If you get the ratio du jour of colors, shapes, and plumbing, then you will have an environment of egalitarian inventiveness and creativity like nothing seen short of Star Trek.
You Get What You SEO For
…most of us would love to work in a place where our position was less cookie-cutter and more deliberately aligned with both our talents and the cultural identity of the company we work for. Likewise, I’m not bothered about the government-like titles such as “Aviation Technical Systems Specialist,” because it is a given that those don’t mean anything at all unless one searches the specific requirements of the position.
Recent Graduates …Only?
It is both amusing and problematic that the old paradox of recent graduates with 10+ years of experience is going away. It is amusing because the swell in nontraditional graduates, especially in terms of those who are either finishing their education while working a career, means that it is actually possible to hire someone who graduated in the last year (i.e. recent graduate) with a decade or more of experience.
Recruiters: Do You Want Qualified Veterans or Just Veterans?
Whether or not someone is a veteran should only give you a point of reference to find out more, but should never really be viewed as the total a person does or can bring to the table -- think about it as a piece of the puzzle, maybe even a corner piece, but it isn't the whole picture.
Directions or Options
You see, while we were both hungry and are heading to get something to eat – that is, our goal is the same – our roles and responsibilities were very different. For her, the emphasis is on being the supporting partner who is flexible with how we achieve our shared goal. In her mind, providing the maximum number of agreeable options without making the final decision is the best way she can meet the obligations of her role.
Take a Hint from Gamers: Learn the Outcomes of Metrics and Systems
That is, we attempt to measure things at a high level that are changed at a very low level — measuring something with many contributing factors, but attributing it to only one or a few — and this tendency extends to our employee engagement efforts. However, if we took a simple hint from the world of gaming, we would quickly find that our fixation on measurement in the way that we do now only succeeds in encouraging undesirable behaviors.