Fear Not

 

If you have bought or sold a home in the past 5 years or so, then you are familiar the concept of virtual tours of homes. For example, your realtor might send you a link to a home that, from the convenience of wherever in the world you are, you can tour that actual home via a real video walk-through.  You can imagine the countless hours and weekend time this new method has saved all parties.

Learn to Unlearn

I’ve blogged about this topic before but events from last week prompted me to address it again. I had lunch with another CEO and he mentioned hiring a new COO. To give this some context, the CEO is a founder and has had terrible luck over the past few years hiring senior level executives. So why did he hire this guy? He said to me,”The guy said to me the only thing he had mastered in almost 30 years of experience was the art of learning.” He went on to explain to me how the COO walked him through how he learns, with a respectful disregard to what he had already learned or mastered.

New Realities

Last week, I was in the Bay Area on the west coast meeting with partners and clients. It’s always nice to be around some cutting-edge and forward-thinking folks. One of them is Stu Winby, who also happens to be on the EQmentor Board. Stu is a thought leader and works exclusively with Boards and the “C” suite on new forms of collaboration and innovation.

Innovation

I have talked about this topic before but in light of the passing of one our greatest innovators, Steve Jobs of Apple, I thought I would resurface the topic. This is what he once said about innovation:

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you!”  Steve Jobs  

Mobile Learning

The following statistics were generated by Future Workplace and IESE Business School.

1. By year end of 2011: nearly forty percent of executives plan to incorporate media tablets into learning and development initiatives and three-quarters of these learning executives plan to incorporate smartphones by the end of this year.
2. By 2015: Human Resource executives plan to leverage mobile devices not only for learning & performance support but also for coaching and mentoring employees (37%), micro-blogging (27%), augmented reality (14%), and mobile gaming (12%).

College Education

Last week I read a troubling statistic: 45% of students made no significant improvement in critical thinking, reasoning, or writing skills during their first two years of college; and 36% showed no improvement after four years of schooling. This comes from Richard Arum of New York University, who studied more than 2,300 students at 24 U.S. colleges and universities for his book Academically Adrift.

Millenials – Challenge Academia

This is the time of the year that college students and soon-to-be graduates are actively ‘hitting the pavement’ looking for internships and jobs. As an employer, I am deeply troubled by what I see coming out of most colleges and university.  Here are specific issues I have:

Baby Boomers

This morning, I heard some alarming and troubling statistics; 16% of the baby boomer generation says they are ready for retirement and 43% say they have less than $10K saved for retirement. The recession has delayed the retirement plans of the average baby boomer by about 9 years.  Two thirds of all health care costs are incurred after the age of 60 and health care costs/insurance is the #1 source of financial concern to retirees, despite medicare and medicaid.

Eliminate Old Barriers

This morning on the way to work, I heard a financial analyst describe the how the European Currency — the Euro — came to be. Granted, the explanation was overly simplified but the Europeans actually were inspired by the United States. They noted how a company in the State of Texas could do business with another in the State of California, for example, using the same currency, without having to worry about travel visas or political policies of either state. They marveled at how this model within the fifty US states drove, in part, the great collaboration and business success we experience.

Getting ready for 2010

It has been a long year for most of us.  The overwhelming majority of us have had a challenging year balancing the dynamics shifts of the workplace and the marketplace. In just about all conversations that I have had with folks from all over the world, there quite possibly has not been a more anticipated year end like 2009 – we all seem to be ready for 2010.  This optimism (an emotional state) is quite different than what most of us felt just 12 months ago when we had no idea how bad things were going to get with the incessant bad news that greeted us each day. The next few weeks, I will be discussing some trends that I am hearing across the board for 2010. 

The AIG Effect

The AIG effect is not a term I coined, but read about in USA Today this weekend.  This article quite effectively captured the current (and foreseeable) trend in how human capital professionals (especially those charged with developing talent) are being impacted with traditional methods.

Are You Renting or Owning Employment?

As many of you know, I am wrapping up work on my 4th book in collaboration with several other folks. During this process, I have had the great pleasure of interviewing practitioners in the professional development space from all industries from all over the world as we prepare for the new year, and the new decade. In one recent interview, the term “renting vs. owning” came up.  Are your employees renting a position or owning it?