I was talking the other day with a fellow trainer about his move from corporation to a solo trainer job. He expressed his satisfaction about getting rid of what he called “employee brainwashing” tactics of his former corporations which he admitted he’s not supposed to talk about during his training. Even more, he confessed to be actually giving his hand to such brainwashing during the trainings he delivers. (more…)

This is probably a question that should not be missed in any job interview for a managerial position. I do not like too much superlatives in supporting a point of view so I would resist stating that setting appropriate targets is the most important skill of all in a managerial job. However, both my sales and consulting experience convinced me that this skill is seriously overlooked in today’s business (especially sales) world and has one of the highest costs on the success of the organization. (more…)

Hardly imaginable 3-4 years ago, the community of medical representatives in Romania is shaken with an increasing pace by word-of-mouth news about massive layoffs in different pharmaceutical companies, restructuring (read downsizing if not closing) of some operations, hire freezes and so on. Mergers and acquisitions are now viewed with a degree of pessimism, higher than ever. Such news come more often than not with a speed of lightning and takes most of the people by surprise. (more…)

It is said that Albert Einstein had hung in his office a poster that mentioned: “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts”. Although this seems rather easy to understand it is often overlooked by business managers in their quest to prove soundness of their decisions. This comes as a consequence of business tendency to promote in management employees with quantitative and analytical skills rather than the intuitive more qualitatively inclined ones. (more…)

I happened to have a question whether 360° feedback shall be used as an “unequivocal” instrument in evaluating performance of managers.

Although at the first sight seems quite a good idea I have my doubts as whether it will provide a real value in evaluating performance of managers, especially in creating a link between rewards of managers for their activity and 360° feedback results.

Here there are a couple of reasons why: (more…)