In a prior post, I wrote about how people don’t know what they want, or why they want it, but the questions I’ve received on the topic (along with many queries from my students over the years) suggest that people are missing something even more fundamental. We all come into…

We Do Not Talk About the Game At far too many companies, being an employee means you have to play the Game. You know the one — it has two sets of rules, and the real rules often contradict the “official” rules. As with Fight Club, any reference to the Game or a set of unspoken rules…

Since my last piece about how to look for A-Players in a job interview, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the specific characteristics that typify these top candidates that everyone wants to hire. As I noted, job histories, portfolios, and insightful questions will create opportunities for A-Players to provide…

While many companies are very much aware of the great need for ensuring that they upgrade their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and initiatives, one of the biggest challenges they face is not knowing where to begin. The extensive problems relating to DEI are daunting, and figuring out where…

Over my years teaching business students at the undergraduate and MBA levels, and in my work as a consultant, I’ve done my share of career coaching. Admittedly, it also comes up a lot when I am at networking events and on LinkedIn, with people looking to score free advice from…

How long does it take you to pee? Seriously. The next time you hit up the porcelain throne, hit a stopwatch. When you’re done, add maybe 30–60 seconds because you probably went faster knowing that you were being timed. Take a look at that number, and you realize that, had…

Over the years, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about mentoring in the workplace. How to be a good mentor, how to be a good protégé, how to find a mentor/protégé, what a mentor should be doing, how often mentors should meet with their protégés, and the like. Many…

Lean times come to businesses. Whether because of an innovation flop, competition, politics, or assorted forms of force majeure, earnings may not be what CEOs and investors are hoping. As the financial belts tighten to weather the crises, the weather in the HR world can get cold enough to cause…

A look at the business world reveals a graveyard of diversity initiatives that have failed to move the needle. Despite discussions happening all over the place, be they in boardrooms, social media, or the water cooler, it seems that very little has changed. …