Changes needed to be made at Bridgestone Retail – and Stu Crum didn't shy away from them
Stu Crum is used to being thrust into situations where he feels the pressure of everyone watching him. Before he began his career in business, Crum spent three years as a placekicker in both the now-defunct United States Football League and the NFL. “As a kicker in football, a closer in baseball or the person […]
Mark Scott: When you take the time to see what makes a person tick, you'll have much better luck making good hires
Rich Panico has high expectations for the people who come to work for him at Integrated Project Management Co. Inc. If you’ve made it through the interview process and been hired for a job, you’ve demonstrated to him that you have both the heart and the mind to thrive in his organization. And if you’ve […]
Recent legal challenges affect biotechnology patents
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Diamond v. Chakrabarty decision in 1980 opened the door for certain modified products of nature to be patented. A natural bacterium modified to digest different hydrocarbons in oil spills was found to be patentable. “This decision allowed the biotechnology industry to boom because it expanded the notion of what was patentable,” […]
Javier LaFianza: Those relationships you tend to take for granted are worth the effort to cultivate and nourish
Leadership and relationships are easy to maintain when everything is going well. People love your product or service. The bottom line is strong, your staff is amazing and your board or shareholders praise you at every turn. It is during these periods, when everything is coming up roses, that people tend to forget the importance […]
Deborah Sweeney: How to get through a business divorce without letting your feelings of disappointment show
When a business partnership goes south, it can quickly become a messy nightmare. There are plenty of horror stories about business partners that end up at each other’s throats, tied up in litigation and mediation for years, much to the detriment of their business. Fortunately, the dissolution of a partnership doesn’t have to mean the […]
David Hankin: What you should be thinking about when a key employee decides to leave
One of management’s primary functions is to create an environment and/or a set of incentives to retain key employees. Despite management’s best efforts, the market will always demand top talent and buy out those “golden handcuffs.” When an OKE — outgoing key employee — moves on, management can react in any number of ways. It […]
Rich Panico is crystal clear about the culture he has built at IPM – and he's not afraid to talk about it
Rich Panico began his career in business as an 8-year-old boy shining shoes in one of Chicago’s inner city neighborhoods now known as Little Italy. “It started to teach me that I didn’t need to wait for things to happen to me,” Panico says. “I had a significant amount of control. As a child, you […]
Thomas Moran: Why you should take the time to think about what your people want in the future
Employment has been a hot topic since the recession in 2008. After spending more than 27 years in the staffing industry, I have noticed a fundamental shift within the industry to a job market that is becoming increasingly temporary in nature. No longer are employees demanding to stay permanently with a company for 30 or […]
Robert Pasin: Why checking on where you've been and where you want to go can be a big help
I’ll never forget the meeting at Radio Flyer where I introduced the concept of developing specific goals for every person and team in the company. An employee who had been with us for a long time asked how much more he would be paid for meeting the goals. That’s when I knew that it would […]
Jay Colker: You'll get more out of your people if you take the time to tell them how to get better
Many leaders dread the performance review process. Leaders are highly focused on performance outcomes and significant time and attention is focused on monthly numbers, particularly if they are below plan. Yet many leaders see formal performance reviews as a burden, a form to submit to human resources to satisfy annual HR requirements. What leaders sometimes […]