Has your company labeled you a ” high potential ?” Do you know? Do you care? There’s a debate growing among human resource professionals on the usefulness of “hi-po” programs. In theory, the idea of singling individuals out for this label allows companies to focus their development resources and plum opportunities where they will have the greatest return — on people who have the capacity to grow into higher levels... 

There’s an art to tweeting. And, I’m sorry to say, most people just haven’t mastered it. Twitter, for the few uninitiated out there, is a social networking site that limits your posts to 140 characters. You can sign up to “follow” (receive the Tweets) from just about anyone you choose. I initially signed up to follow lots of people — colleagues, journalists, academics, politicians, comedians, friends and family.... 

President Obama is arguably the United States’ first President who is a member of Generation X. (I say “arguably” since the boundary line between Boomers and X’ers is subject to debate. Born in 1961, in my view, he’s the vanguard of the next generation leaders .) While I don’t believe any individual is poster child for the shared traits of a generation, I do think some of President Obama’s actions reflect... 

It happened last year, around the first of July. In my experience, the switch was just about that abrupt. All last spring, most senior business leaders I met shrugged off the business applicability of Web 2.0. Allowing access to social networks in the workplace was something they were willing to consider only if it was absolutely necessary to keep younger employees from complaining. Twitter? What was that? But by summer, the conversations I was... 

This is a big month for me. And since many of you have contributed ideas to the discussion here over the past three years — and I’d like to ask you to join me in a little celebration. The third book in the trilogy I’ve written to the generations is published this month. More than the previous two, this book, is less “mine” and more “ours.” Your responses to posts on this site helped me understand your perspectives;... 

I predict this year will be marked by five changes in the evolving relationship between those who work and those who pay to have work done. Most of these trends have been percolating for some time — many stemming back to the 1981 recession, and its then-startling lay-offs. The most recent recession accelerated and intensified the changing nature of the employee-employer relationship. Recessions unquestionably leave a mark on the way we work.... 

I’ve been homeless. Not technically . I always had the ability to recreate a home over time and never knew the hopelessness of true homelessness. But back in the 1980s, our house burned down and, for three months, we had few possessions and no place to call our own. Yesterday, as I shopped for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I had a flashback to the day after the fire. By … Originally posted here:  Thankful for What We Have . .... 

Many years ago, when the idea of women in professional roles in business was much more novel that it is today, magazines were eager to profile female pioneers. As a very young managing director in one of the then-prominent management consulting companies, I received lots of requests for interviews. One of the first was from a major, serious business magazine. The writer conducted a lengthy interview on … Go here to see the original:  Newsweek’s... 

I have been trying to send a wire transfer for over a week now. In the process, I’ve been asked dozens of times how my day is going, offered multiple cups of coffee, and declined repeated suggestions that perhaps I’d like to run a few errands while I wait. I’ve been smiled at, welcomed, and offered comfortable chairs. My responses have gone from the standard and polite, “fine, thank you,” to the near-hysterical “not... 

Much of my work over the past several years has wrestled with issues of diversity, specifically among the generations. My research has shown me time and again how powerfully and unconsciously our past experiences color the way we perceive events today — and how easily we form the wrong conclusion by judging another person through our lens. I’ve come across dozens of examples of mistaken impressions among the generations. For example,... 

William Strauss and Neil Howe, coauthors of Generations , posit that each generation makes a unique bequest to those that follow and generally seeks to correct the excesses of the previous generation. They argue that the Boomer excess is ideology and that the Generation X reaction to that excess involves an emphasis on pragmatism and effectiveness. As many of you know, I’ve spent much of the last year talking with members of Generation X... 

My last post prompted a question that I thought might be worth discussing broadly. JoAnn Becker asked what the major marketplace forces are today and the implications of those forces for the company and the worker — how the recession and shifting talent practices mesh with the trends outlined in the books Workforce Crisis (written for organizations seeking talent), Retire Retirement (written to Boomers), and Plugged In (written to Gen Y’s).... 

By now we’ve all heard the phrase that a recession is too precious to waste. Recessions are times when we make changes in the way we do things — consciously or not. Although it would be smart to do it consciously, probably some of the most significant changes have just, well, happened. The shift underway today, embedded in companies’ responses to this recession, will have major unintended consequences for the relationship between... 

An increasing percentage of the work done today depends, as Blanche DuBois might have said, on the kindness of strangers. Your success as a leader hinges on your ability to entice people — many of whom you may never even meet — to want to go the extra mile for your business. Discretionary effort is the life blood of today’s economy. As we move to business models that depend on people working together, on innovation, on individual... 

As thousands of students pour into the sluggish job market this spring, news sources are trumpeting dramatic stories of graduates whose dreams have been dashed by the current economy. First, I suspect most of these stories are written by Boomers (parents of Y’s) who, based on my interviews, are far more distressed by the current events than are most of the Y’s. Second, let me assure both students and parents that this… Go here...