Thanks to Loring Kaveney and the team at Startup Grind Minneapolis for a great event last week. It was fun to talk about Intertech, The 100, and balancing work and home.
Thanks to TECHdotMN a video of the event is online!
My t
hanks to MinnPost for publishing my article Lifelong Learning: only a click away. Here’s the start:
Schools are gearing up for another academic year and politicians are cranking up the rhetoric (heaven help us) as the election approaches. The quality and cost of education no doubt will be among the top debate subjects as the presidential candidates slug it out this fall. As the parent of a freshly minted kindergartner, I get why this is a compelling issue. But as the founder and owner of a technology consulting and training company, I wish the debate could be expanded to include lifelong learning. Specifically, how to encourage lifelong learning, particularly among minorities.
Join me on Monday, September 12th @ 6:30 at COCO Downtown Minneapolis for a Startup Grind Fireside Chat. I’ll be spending an hour or so with Loring Kaveney talking about entrepreneurship, Intertech, and my latest book. Here’s the agenda for the evening:
6:30 pm Networking and Food
7:30 pm Fireside Chat
8:30 pm More Networking
To keep morale and motivation high, it’s essential to motivate your top performers as well those who need to improve and those who need to be shown the door. There’s a shorthand code for these three groups of employees:
Saints: those who may be a great fit with our culture but who are poor performers.
Our response to saints and dogs is the same: shape up or ship out. While this may sound harsh, keeping employees who don’t perform or fit with your company values risks bringing down the whole ship.
As I note in my new book, “The 100: Building Blocks for Business Leadership,” most employees are not fired because they lack necessary technical skills. Most often they have poor emotional intelligence. In other words, their personality or people skills are a poor fit with our cultural expectations. Firing someone with top technical skills who alienates clients or teammates through arrogance or bullying is a no-brainer. Those folks, along with those kind souls who can’t seem to get anything done, are not organizational assets.
Once you’ve made a decision to let someone go, do so quickly and use the following guidelines to make the process as painless as possible (for you and them!):