Talent Insights

Stay up-to-date on the latest talent trends, tips and best practices.

Tell Us About You – What a Team Wants to Know About a New Leader

A client, let's call him Joe, who recently joined a global consumer goods organization, participated in a process known as a New Leader Assimilation about a month into his employment with the firm. Joe's organization strongly believes that the success of a new leader is greatly enhanced by using a [...]

Leaders: Do You Have the Courage to Work on Your Teaming Skills?

Lecturing on teaming in an Executive MBA program for eight years, I’ve seen how managers often struggle to team. While these talented, mid-career, senior managers and executives enroll in the program for a variety of reasons, many share a common “productivity” mindset - quickly assess a problem (class assignment), structure [...]

Three Disciplines for Making Smarter People Decisions—Discipline #3: Accountability

“The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed responsibility for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.” Michael Armstrong Former Chairman and CEO AT&T Accountability. We have heard [...]

When More Job Candidates Are Not the Answer

Let’s say a friend or colleague seeking to fill a key job has interviewed several strong candidates and narrowed their focus to one favored candidate. But they don’t feel ready to move forward with a job offer. So, they message the recruiter and other colleagues that they’d like to see a couple more candidates. Why? What will a couple more candidates do for him? Convince him the candidate in hand that meets the requirements is the best choice after all? Surface the “world-beater” candidate he hoped for all along? Simply postpone making a decision he seemed unsure of in the first place?

Interviewers: Talk less; build rapport more.

“I thought talking was building rapport”, you say. Sure, to the extent you are only talking about 15% of the interview time. While talking more may help you and the candidate feel like the interview is more conversational, it has one major drawback – you get less data for assessing the candidate.

Building rapport is about enabling greater openness and sharing. It is a critical element to enable learning about the “whole person” in the interview process. It is the “whole person” who ultimately shows up on the job and not just the polished interviewee persona.