Jeff Weiner led LinkedIn through a blockbuster IPO to a current market capitalization of over $20 billion. After the IPO, he’s come out the other side with several incredible management lessons involving the focus on values, compassion, and leadership around unified goals. While most companies dismiss these concepts easily as somehow stale or separate from the work they need to get done day to day, Weiner has implemented them as cornerstones of his leadership philosophy and management model.
Category: Reads
How Facebook Tries To Prevent Office Politics
Fear of nasty office politics creeping up in your organization? Read about five clues from Facebook to prevent destructive office politics: 1. Look for empire builders, self-servers, and whiners in the hiring process — and don’t hire them; 2. Take the incentive out of “climbing the ladder;” 3. Be open and transparent, and create opportunities for voices to be heard; 4. Make everyone accountable, so personal bias can’t creep into decision making; 5. Train your leaders to effectively manage politics out of conversations.
>> on Leadership, People Dynamics & Culture <<
Written by Jay Parikh, published by HBR
Something Weird Happens To Companies When They Hit 150 People
There is a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. This limit has suggested to be 150 and is known as “Dunbar’s Number” named after the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. Dunbar’s research implies that for a group to sustain itself at the size of 150 requires significantly more effort that must be spent on the core socialization to keep the group functioning.
>> on Management, Collaboration & Org Design <<
Written by Kevin J. Delaney, published on Quartz
What I Hear When You Tell Me Your Company Doesn’t Do Meetings
Getting rid of meetings is not a management revolution. Meetings are discussions between colleagues about the work to be done and the reasons for doing it . They are important. But just because they’re important doesn’t mean they organize themselves.
>> on Management, Collaboration & Org Design <<
Written by Jonathan Nightingale, published on Medium
Anti-Perks
Good perks are aimed at making people’s lives outside work easier — but specifically in ways that help them perform better when they’re at work, working. Anti-perks are perks that seem like they could benefit your well-being or productivity, but actually have a lot of potential to harm them.
>> on Comfort, Community & Well-being <<
Written by Vincent Lofranco, published on Even blog
How To Hire The Right People
A typical job interview is little more than a social call with some predictable choreography. A conference-room meeting, a pristine résumé and the standard questions. To really assess candidates for match with your organization you should come up with better ways for selecting the right people right.
>> on HR, People Operations & Talent Management <<
Written by Adam Bryant, published The New York Times
Tough Lessons Learned on Giving and Receiving Feedback
In this article outlines why feedback is not only needed as a vital process in a company but a true act of kindness towards team members. It shares some of the methods Leo Widrich, co-founder of Buffer, learned for giving and receiving feedback.
>> on Management, Collaboration & Org Design <<
Written by Leo Widrich, published by Buffer Open
Organizational Culture – Who Owns It, Business Or Human Resources?
HR has a major role in enabling the business to live (or change) its culture by supporting it with the appropriate tools, systems and processes, and when needed – professional expertise…but in essence, it’s all about how the people in an organization are nurtured and led. Therefore, it is essential that the business owns a company’s culture – this is especially true when a company decides to change its culture.
>> on Leadership, People Dynamics & Culture <<
Written by Jerry Pico
How To Improve Employee Engagement in the Workplace
The solution for improving employee engagement requires employers and recruiters to understand that disengagement stems from needs that are going unmet. It’s the company’s job to engage employees by creating a workspace that meets employee’s needs.
>> on HR, People Operations & Talent Management <<
Written by Paul Slezak, published on RecruitLoop
What’s Going On With Employee Empowerment?
Even the largest, most hierarchical organizations, like the military and global multinationals, are seeing the need to create practices of empowerment and distributed decision making that will keep the company nimble and innovating, and make the organization more resilient. Whether this ultimately gets to a “bossless” state of self-management for most companies is unlikely, but there is mounting evidence that the movement towards greater empowerment is both necessary and inevitable.
