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At Consolidated Snacks, the product management team meets quarterly to review market share and revenue data for its 18 salty snack products. The team uses this data to allocate their limited marketing budget. They have also created a handful of guidelines to ensure that their investment decisions consistently reflect the company’s product management philosophy. Among […]

We wrote the original version of “It’s the Mortar not the Bricks” in 2019 responding to a plethora of alternative HR operating models flooding into the marketplace. Our experience told us that it wasn’t HR’s operating model that was interfering in HR’s success. It was HR’s inability to operationalize their operating model. Since that time, […]

The pandemic created a fundamental shift in where people work, followed by incendiary disagreements about the tradeoffs of where people work. Those fires have been further fanned by popular media, business media, anti-business media, social media, TikTok, surveys and academic advocates. What’s been lacking is a fact-based discussion about what science and evidence say are […]

It’s the first morning of your new job. You’re excited because you’ve been selected to have coffee with the CEO to ask questions about the company. She has a reputation as being straightforward and a bit impatient, so you’ve thoroughly prepared for this conversation. The barista hands you and the CEO your coffees and you […]

Each year’s Harvard Medical School graduating class includes one doctor who is ranked at the bottom of their class. To be clear, this individual was the absolute worst performer in their four years at this highly esteemed institution. Every other Harvard Medical School graduate that year had performed better than they did. If you lined […]

We celebrate the progress that companies have made in talent management over the last 15 years. CEOs and Boards now better understand the value of high quality talent. CHROs have built-out talent practices and the talent-building capabilities of their HR team. Yet despite that progress, even the most progressive organizations aren’t seeing the talent management […]

At least once a month, I show a decidedly fake version of myself to very important people who have paid handsomely for my services. The fake me may show up in a client meeting, an executive education session or during an important speech. My clients don’t know that it’s the fake me and they don’t […]

The Top Line: Five Key Findings from our 2024 survey Our 2024 Global HR Census finds that a curious dichotomy describes those in the HR field.HR leaders show up as highly engaged.Many are willing to sacrifice to achieve their career goals. They care deeply about developing people and they possess strong experience in the function. […]

Preface Dear Reader: I apologize for writing such a long report. What you’ll read in this report started with an article idea about skills-based environments. The idea was spurred by the increasing promotion of the concept by vendors and consultants and the early corporate initiatives I had heard about. When I write an article, I […]