One of the top issues keeping CEOs awake at night is organizational capability. According to a May 2014 McKinsey & Company study, capability building ranks as a top-three priority for many CEOs. When we speak to CEOs and other upper executives in leading organizations, we hear they are well aware of any significant capability gaps in their organizations and, for the most part, know which direction they need to head. More than half the executives, though, struggle to translate capability building into operations – they have a hard time translating such an exercise into performance improvement measures at an individual…

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In your professional environment, have you ever met a leader or a colleague who is the opposite of self-aware? Mr. Unaware thinks he knows everything, never listens to others and has other problems. However, his biggest problem? He doesn’t know! Self-awareness is the foundation for being a successful and authentic leader. It is a key capability for leaders to develop. Being true to yourself is the most important thing as the hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself! Self-awareness is also a “keystone” of our Emotional Intelligence. Here are five ways how you can cultivate and develop…

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We recently held an Apero event for Whirling Chief in Switzerland’s beautiful Villa Wenkenhof, to celebrate our first five exciting months with many of the people who got us here. There is a genuine story to this undertaking we have made and we thought this would be the perfect time to share it. The idea of an online collaboration platform comes from a very sacred place in our hearts – straight from our love of Human Resources and Organizational Development. And it also comes from our strong wish to ‘make work a better place for many.’ When you have such…

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The world is at the cusp of redefining itself. Businesses are being redefined. The way we organize ourselves, the way we connect. The way we learn is no different… Today’s patterns for learning (professionally or personally) is vastly different than in previous times. Knolskape does just that. It helps organizations rethink the experience of learning. Whatever the need – on-boarding, capability development, assessments, or engagement – Knolskape can help re-energize any organizational programs through its award winning experiential learning products and platforms. It has been recognized among the world’s top 20 learning gamification companies. We recently conducted a Q&A with…

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By Sandro Krug During my career in HR, across different industries, different companies, different countries, and different business functions, I have met few people who feel fulfilled with what they are doing at work. Sadly, it seems that many people too often are grasping at straws, trying to find reasons why they still do what they do. But why is this? And more importantly, what can we do to improve our degree of fulfillment at work? Is it meaningful? If your work is something you truly love, it will give you drive, direction, and a deep feeling of fulfillment every…

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You see, Dory, one of the main characters in both Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, suffers from memory loss. She can’t even remember what she has just done. Whilst this is a seemingly big disadvantage, it has one huge advantage. She is not encumbered by the past. Actually, there’s really no such thing as ‘our past.’ All we have is our recollection of it. This is subconsciously informed by: All the feelings we had at the time All the points of view we held All the points of view that everyone else held What was said and what was not…

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A few weeks back, we shared an intro on HRM for people managers. Today, we share an orientation video for HR professionals. What is your role as a HRBP in HRM? Do we really own all of the HR activities or where do we co-share? How much of ownership need be authentic? Where do we lean in and forward? Join us in the conversation by leaving a comment under the video. Let us know what details of functional activities to cover in the upcoming series. Thank you!

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Let’s shift now to another important aspect of team development: having team members agree and commit to final decisions, and stick to the agreed-upon plans of action. I’m sure we have all faced those moments – spending lots of time developing “ground rules,” then trying to commit to those and live by them. I’d like to share with you three aspects you can pay attention to when agreeing and committing to team decision making. 1) Involvement Commitment to final decisions is vital, as each team member knows – all participants should be heard. The time spent to give everyone a…

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Today, we jump back to a topic we started last week. Namely, organizational design. We touched on the basic premise of this work, and ended by listing the steps needed for its success. Let’s dive into these steps one by one next: Developing a case for change Many times, senior management teams or the corporate leadership groups go through either a strategic planning process or an executive team development process prior to beginning a redesign initiative. Depending on how clear they are about their strategy, how well developed their internal capabilities might be, the maturity of their planning process, and…

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Words matter… How we communicate to those around us and how we approach stakeholders to form coalitions matter a lot. There is certain terminology in the book of business and human resources management we have come to dislike over time. ‘Work-life balance,’ for example. It implies work is something different than life, where in reality it is a big part of life. It segregates the two and builds a separation of time, resources, and values, which is simply untrue of the human condition. ‘Feedback’ is another one. Not only is its definition limited to statements of opinion, it has become…

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