Strategy
Tackling problems no one wants to touch
As the leader of your team you have many roles, including coach, referee, teacher and boss. Being comfortable in multiple hats is a cornerstone...
Leadership
Strategy
Q-and-A: Ed Marx on innovation, industry changes and advice for CIOs
Ed Marx is the senior vice president and chief information officer at Texas Health Resources in Arlington, Texas. His career in the health care...
Strategy
Innovation: 3 ways companies do it wrong
Today, you’re either innovating or you’re falling behind. 97% of CEOs label innovation as a “top priority” for their company. The best companies are...
Strategy
8 benefits to being a socially responsible brand
Business leaders act, not react. By nature they are forward-thinking and innovative — a ballast on a ship. But never before has leadership been...
Strategy
“Flex”: How we (don’t) talk about difference
This post is an excerpt from “Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences,” (March 2014, HarperBusiness), by Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee....
Strategy
How to motivate your team to start thinking creatively
Famous artists like Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol often come to mind when we think of creativity. These innovators were famous...
Strategy
Making room for risk in high-performing companies
To drive innovation, you sometimes have to “break” to achieve your breakthrough. Tesla Motors is a perfect example of a company that disrupted its...
Strategy
Unleashing the improvement potential of front-line employees
From the time of Alexander the Great to the invention of the steam engine in the 18th century, there was almost no increase in...
Strategy
What is one app that has made you a more productive leader? Why?
The Young Entrepreneur Council is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that...
Strategy
Leading like an entrepreneur
How I envy the newborn entrepreneur. In the face of incredible odds and with little chance of survival they blindly press on with a...
Strategy
The principles of a dual operating system
This post is an excerpt from “John Kotter’s ACCELERATE: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014), by John Kotter....
Strategy
Walk around your opponents
In addition to my role as CEO of Impact Strategies International LLC, I do some work with Babson College and serve part-time in its...
Strategy
How Ray Kroc’s values inspired success
#2696721 / gettyimages.com This post is part of the series “Workplace Morale,” a weeklong effort co-hosted by SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership and the folks...
Strategy
Is failure a luxury?
The importance of failure in innovation is all the buzz right now. Business modeling and lean startups are great ways to mitigate and manage...
Strategy
Q-and-A: Alibaba and the future of e-commerce in the U.S.
ChannelAdvisor co-founder and CEO Scot Wingo E-commerce is an industry that seems to be in a constant state of growth, with emerging technology and...
Strategy
Are employees sharing the common language of innovation?
At times, corporate communication can seem like learning how to shoot a bow and arrow. That’s not because you’re trying to take your competitors...
Strategy
Are you ready to be a social age leader?
Industrial Age leadership was good, or at least efficient. It enabled us to get the most out of every worker; expectations were set; consequences...
Strategy
Collaboration: It’s not what you think it is
“I’m going to begin to collaborate more with the stakeholders outside of my organization — clients, cross-functional partners and others.” I asked the leader...
Strategy
Inspiring creative thinking by debunking common myths
Creativity breeds fresh ideas, but the stigma that creativity is an indefinable and unattainable quality steers us toward old processes that yield predictable answers....
Strategy
Yes, you are creative — here’s how to find the spark
It still hurts to think about it. It was early in my career and I was facing a big challenge. How do we involve...
Strategy
5 critical elements of measured risk in innovation
I am continually amazed by people who take a vision and attempt to turn it into a business reality. Of course, this requires passion,...
Strategy
Frank Perdue’s obsession with quality
This post is an excerpt from the book “Tough Man, Tender Chicken: Business and Life Lessons from Frank Perdue” (December 2014, Significance Press) by...
Strategy
5 ways to get unstuck
Adrian had been looking for a solution to an issue at work in her head for months (and months). She was, in her words,...
HR
Evil HR Lady
Evil HR Lady An anonymous HR official answers readers’ thorniest questions. Not really evil, but sometimes the truth can sting.
HR
The HR Capitalist
The HR Capitalist Kris Dunn writes about the intersection of HR practice, technology and business results.
HR
The Lake Wobegon of HR
Last week’s SmartBrief on Workforce poll question was How would you rank your skill level in interviewing potential hires? Good — 43% Average —...
HR
Report from HR Tech: Where talent and tech intersect
Today’s guest post is by Bradford Thomas, a manager at Development Dimensions International and a global talent management expert. He is a regular contributor...
HR
Making HR more strategic
Today’s guest post is by Mike Sheehan, a senior instructor at thoughtLEADERS, a leadership development firm. A graduate of the Kellogg School of Management,...
HR
Steve Boese on HR’s role in Enterprise 2.0
Steve Boese, a member of the SmartBrief on Workforce Advisory Board, is one of the HR profession’s foremost experts in enterprise technology solutions. An...
HR
Is HR out of the compensation loop?
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question...
HR
Is HR un-social?
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question...
HR
How the Louisiana Lottery’s HR team put social media to work
Social media has the power to transform how business leaders communicate with their workers. SmartBrief on Workforce Senior Editor Mary Ellen Slayter recently spoke...
HR
Where HR goes to lawyer up
Lawyers can be a handy part of your HR team. They’re great if you need to sue someone for violating a noncompete, bust a...
HR
Confidential to HR: How to keep engaged in chaos
Maybe it’s just me and my insistence on seeing political and economic headlines through the lens of human resources and individual careers — but...
HR
5 ways social media could hurt your HR career
We love social media. It keeps us in touch with our friends in expected ways (photos of our cats and vacations, reports of our moods...
HR
HR: We’re just not that into Twitter
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question...
HR
Why I love HR
I can’t believe it’s been five years since Fast Company magazine ran its infamous cover story “Why We Hate HR.” Can you imagine how...
HR
HR: There’s an app for that
This guest post is by Bradford Thomas, manager at Development Dimensions International. Greetings from the 13th Annual HR Technology conference in Chicago. What a...
HR
Not buying an increase in HR jobs
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in SmartBrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and human resources practitioners. We run the poll...
HR
Is HR (as a job category) dead?
Recently, I was entering candidates into our database and came across the title “vice president of people and culture.” Because our system has a...
HR
What CEOs wish HR would understand
HR executives who want to become trusted members of the CEO’s inner circle should understand some things about their boss without being told, said...
HR
What is HR to do when there’s no time for the to-do list?
The job of an HR professional has never been so daunting. Your to-do list is growing, the pile on your desk doesn’t seem to...