These are photos from our Christmas party last Friday. It was a good one when people have the opportunities to get to know each other, unfortunately due to the snow storm a few cannot make it because their flights were canceled.
I was often asked the question "how do you build a high performance culture?". The answer is simple. Assemble the best minds, create a high performance environment and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration. It is no secret formula. but not easy to pull off. I’ve long decided earlier in my career that I only work with the best, hire the best and train them to be the best. The idea of “mediocrity” kills me. This word is not in my dictionary and I shouldn’t know how to spell it.
At Idea Couture, we are careful of who we hire, we received 30-40 unsolicited applications every month, not many have the aspiration, quality and commitment to be the best. If you ask some of us, it is more than just hard work.
Most companies don’t understand talent. Money, titles and fancy offices are hardly the solution. If someone likes the glorification of a glorified title and a bit more money, that says something about a person. Who wants to join as first officer when everyone knows the ship is sinking?
In good times investing in talent seems to make sense and can be done on faith. But it's in the tough, and challenging environment where how and where you invest can really make a difference. We need to be always thinking about how do we get smart and align talent management with business performance.
Cornell’s Professor Gary Fields coined the term "bottom-line human resource management." In his view, truly strategic human resources starts with the targeted business performance results and determines what investments and actions will achieve them. Many HR practices fail to do that. Many HR focus is on paper pushing rather than action and impact.
People work for people-not brands, not companies, not shareholders, not strategies. Your leaders are your organizations to your people. Your leadership team is crucial. One bad decision of getting a wrong person joining the leadership team can cause heavy damage.
Leadership needs to be visible, highly visible. When leaders practice invisible leaderships, people not only lose confidence but they will become cynical. Leadership presence is very important. Visible leaders also need to be approachable leaders. People need to feel comfortable coming to a leader when they are dealing with a very tough situation or admitting a mistake.
It is our jobs as leaders to find the best opportunities for our best people. Great talents want great opportunities. They want the chance to tackle bigger problems and bigger challenges. They love the excitement of being able to stretch, learn and grow. They are comfortable to accept their weaknesses and positively work towards improving them. As leaders, it is our responsibilities to find opportunities, you cannot delegate that to someone else.
I don’t know how the hot pink became part of our corporate ID color. I guess since I first used it in some our presentations earlier in the year and everyone is liking it. It sort of just happened. People are jokingly saying we are the McKisney consultants in black suit and pink socks. I forgot who said that. This is the Moleskine book that we sending out to our clients. I do like the pink on black very much. Thanks Jess fo the design.
Hot pink is a popular color these days, even Kenton County jail is using that for their uniform. The traditional orange prison jump suits were replaced with hot pink ones. You want to know why? The switch was prompted one Sunday afternoon last year when Col. Scott Colvin, chief deputy jailer, was looking from his office window toward Paul Brown Stadium and noticed all the Cincinnati Bengals fans decked out in orange. “I thought, ‘Man, if someone got away from here, they’d score a hot dog and get away,”
I know hot pink is in. I didn't realize it is that hot.
