Legendary Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt once said: “The purpose of every business is to create and keep a customer.”

How do you do that? How do you create and keep customers?

Let’s take a page from soccer. Soccer, the most popular, most loved, game in the world (everywhere but the USA, that [...]

Have you seen the recent articles about the latest trend in heinous hiring practices? Some companies are telling their recruiters that the unemployed need not apply.

What the heck?!?

In one Texas employer’s job ad it said:  “Client will not consider or review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason.”

A good friend of mine, an [...]

I believe in hustle.

Hustle to me is a state of mind. It is a combination of working hard and working quickly. You make mistakes quicker, you make adjustments quicker and you have success quicker. Not only that but once you find success, you sustain that success through continuing the cycle.

Hustle doesn’t take a college degree [...]

Nancy Folbre is an economic professor at the University of Massachusetts and by all-accounts, she is one smart cookie. Case in point, she did a report on “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the US Labor Market” that said (among other things) that “Employment growth is ‘polarizing’ into relatively high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low-wage [...]

Now, proper old school job hunting etiquette tells us that you need to send a handwritten thank you note after an interview. Break out the stationery and your best cursive because an email just won’t do. It’s an important difference. Why? Well, it’s a professional gesture with a personal touch. Also, very few people send [...]

Just one, but they are probably wearing 97 different hats

I have been a generalist HR practitioner and site manager for most of my career.   I have done almost everything you can do in a generalist role at one point or another.    Today, I am a specialist, and a consultant.   I don’t manage anyone directly.   I [...]

On numerous occasions over the years, I’ve coached women managers and execs.  Recently, while going through my file on influence management, I stumbled on an old article by Mary Ellen Drummond entitled, Seven Things We Do That Keep Us From Getting Ahead, from a now defunct (?) magazine called Women Managers.  Although these recommendations don’t apply to a [...]

As an HR Thought Leader, I’ve been asked what I think of the relationships among Training, Organization Development, and HR. Having labored in this nexus for over 25 years, I definitely have some thoughts.

Let’s start with Training and OD.  For me, both are professional fields of practice, distinct from each other as career paths, but [...]

Employee Engagement: Think Like a CEO.

Corner Office is a feature by Adam Bryant in the Sunday Business section of The New York Times. His interviews offer highlights from conversations about leadership and management. I believe his interviews offer terrific insight into the CEO’s perspective on leadership, management and employee engagement.

His most recent interview was with Barbara [...]

Easily the most intimidating aspect of job hunting, there are a lot of rational and irrational things to be afraid of when it comes to interviews. There you are, about to meet with people whose opinion of you directly impacts your future and financial stability. Is it any big surprise that interviews make you feel [...]