If you are a high achiever or workaholic, take a few minutes from your busy schedule to think about whether it’s all worth it. The perpetual search for excellence is a dependence that brings us to take only calculated risks in order to avoid failure.
Inspiring leaders are confident, smile and give off energy that influences their teams, energizes them and motivates them to move mountains. They are decisively optimistic, which helps them better support pressure and get through crises and moments of stress. Winston Churchill was always optimistic, regardless of what happened.How do leaders pull it off and how do we encourage optimism in our organizations? How do we go about finding these people and appointing them to lead projects?
I’ve just spent two weeks in a classroom—but not just any old classroom. Harvard is renowned for the very best. For a second, you can almost believe you’re at Hogwarts. What a stimulating and energizing experience. Beyond the valuable teaching, and quality of the professors, assistants and participants in the program of this prestigious university, I was privileged to see the masks fall one by one.
It’s the end of December 2009, and I’ve been doing the same job for 15 years. I know it by heart, and can do it with my eyes closed or just about.I’m stuck in a darn comfort zone that undermines me instead of comforting me in my cushy files. How many of us have told ourselves that we’ve learned all there is to learn in a certain field, but don’t know what the next step is?
This morning as I opened my e-mail, I had this message from one of my social networks: “Nathalie, 520 of your contacts changed jobs in 2010!” Not only was I receiving direct statistics from my network, but I also had a list of the people concerned. With no direct effort on my part, I have access to a current database corresponding to 20% of my contacts in this particular network. Now that’s interesting—very interesting!
Did you know that unhappy employees are not productive because they lose their creativity? Although they come in and “do the job,” they have lost all their fire. Their hearts are not in it, and they are already elsewhere in their minds—even if they’re not yet sure where.
How do you inspire your teams and colleagues? Beyond the theories, formulas and management literature, your attitude will determine whether or not you succeed in motivating and mobilizing the people around you.
There are still many companies that do not have an official human resources department. And yet, the HR function is alive and well in many of these same companies. It is practised on the management committee, it is embodied by the head of the company, director of operations, or the financial and administrative director.
Human resources should be more business-oriented and strategic! We’ve all heard that before. I would even say it is starting to sound worn out. I remember the end of the 1990s when I was doing a master’s degree, and the professors had drummed it into our heads that we had to think “business”—that we were not in sociology, teaching but in HR economics.
I love the English language and its sometimes-treacherous nuances. There are about a dozen ways to say any one action. For example, you can dismiss, lay off, fire, terminate or discharge someone. Not only are there many ways to say it, but also many ways to do it, which is the issue.
I want it all !!! “Je veux tout” (I want it all) is the title of an Ariane Moffat song that nicely symbolizes today’s social reality. Candidates want it all, right now. People want the best person available and at the lowest cost.
Recruiting a good recruiter is not easy, as you know.Unfortunately, this function is all too often seen as a point of entry into human resources departments and services. And yet, recruiters are an essential link in attracting talents, who are required to provide great added value and demonstrate excellent tactical skills.