Posted on July 23, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Religion and spirituality still play openly in the Indian public square. Of course, there are tons of temples great and small scattered about here. More interestingly, the Times of India has a “Sacred Space” on its editorial page and a special “Spirituality” URL (here). True to the syncrentist bent here, the quotes come from a range [...]
Filed under: Leadership | Tagged: Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Catholic, compassion, Frederick Buechner, Hinduism, Muslim, Protestant, religion, spirituality | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 21, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Sara’s post at Pajama Professional about asking yourself tough questions before starting a home business (here) made me think about the challenges of telecommuting and virtual work. I had been tagged for an interview about the topic — I didn’t make the cut — and my team is almost entirely virtual. The topic is always [...]
Filed under: Leadership, People Development, Performance Management, Skills vs. competencies | Tagged: career trade-offs, hiring interviews, home-based work, interview questions, Pajama Professional, telecommuting, virtual work, working remotely | No Comments »
Posted on July 19, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
I hadn’t seen this blog before (here), but I liked this post that compiled tips focusing on non-financial incentives and practices (here). The suggestion to “establish an appraisal system where clearly defined objectives are mutually agreed” seemed benign enough, but adding the phrase “appraisals should be continuous, not just once a year” put some punch [...]
Filed under: Leadership, People Development | Tagged: Business, incentive schemes, Managerial Skills, motivation, non-financial motivation, staff motivation | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 18, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
From my recent tag surfing spree, here’s a post from Barry Zweibel on making sure that one’s doghouse doesn’t get too full (here … hat tip: Your Executive Edge here). His first paragraphs set up the story well:
We get mad. We get cranky. We judge. We blame. We put people on ice. Send them to Siberia. [...]
Filed under: Leadership, People Development, Skills vs. competencies | Tagged: 11th Step, anger, Barry Zweibel, forgiveness, in the doghouse, Myers-Briggs, resentments, St. Francis, St. Francis prayer | 2 Comments »
Posted on July 17, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Thoughts after tag surfing…. A lot of the comments on the Starbucks store closings claim that the 600 closings are driven by location mistakes. The recent internal memo from Howard Schultz listing the stores to close in July 2008 headlined the “poor real estate decisions” made (story here). There has been a lot of talk of cannibalization (here) [...]
Filed under: Branding, Customer Service, Leadership, Performance Management, Strategy Management, Turnarounds | Tagged: Christian Mullins, Howard Schultz, John Quelch, Starbucks, Starbucks customer service, Starbucks Gossip, store closing | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 17, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
This is a follow up on a conversation I had with someone about the improving status and respect for women in China. I made a note to myself to pay more attention while I was here, so here goes…
I’m attending the Asia-Pacific + Japan PMO summit here in Shanghai — BTW, I can get to WP [...]
Filed under: Globalization, Leadership, Organizational Change Management, People Development | Tagged: China, status of women, woman leaders | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 15, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Inspired by a post on Sharp End Training’s blog (here), my post (here), and a comment by PM Hut…
FYI, moved to right sidebar
Filed under: Communications, Leadership, PMO, People Development, Performance Management, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management, Project Success Factors, Quality Management, Requirements Management, Scope Management, Stakeholder management | Tagged: corner cutting, Elizabeth Harrin, Girl's Guide to Project Management, Jonathan Senior, Paul Ritchie, PM Hut, Sharp End Training | No Comments »
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
I’m curious whether folks have any good stories about humor…I’ve found that a little bit of insanity always helps keep a project or an initiative fun (or at least bearable). Also, showing that I can laugh at myself is a great way to loosen up the team.
I was on a busy team supporting the wave of [...]
Filed under: Communications, Leadership, Organizational Change Management, Project Success Factors | Tagged: All Dogs go to Heaven, camp, Ethel Merman, Fargo, humor, Ken Page, King Gator, Mike Yanagita, motivation, SAP Upgrades, self-effacement, There's No Business Like Show Business | No Comments »
Posted on July 12, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Mike King at Learn This has a fairly long post on promoting employee engagement (here) — one last Hat Tip to the PM Blog Carnival (here). I liked the thoughts in this passage especially:
Make it Part of The System … In order to ensure that employee engagement is something that gets attention, is measured and has [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Organizational Change Management, People Development, Skills vs. competencies, Training | Tagged: Commitment, Diversity, employee engagement, Learn This, Learning, Mike King, Paul Ritchie | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 10, 2008 by Paul Ritchie
Wow, the latest PM Blog Carnival (here) sure had some blogworthy entries in this edition…this must be my fifth post inspired by it. Louise Manning at The Human Imprint had a set of key change management steps (here), the foundation of which is her riff on the well-known Gandhi quote:
“You must be the change you [...]
Filed under: Communications, Leadership, Organizational Change Management, People Development, Performance Management | Tagged: Paul Ritchie, coaching, fear, Louise Manning, Mahatma Gandhi, acceptance, resistance, Martha Rice | 1 Comment »
