February’s Black History Week was established by historian Carter Woodson in 1926 to recognize the achievements of African Americans. Fifty years later under President Ford’s leadership, the week was expanded to a month now also known as National African American History Month. A history of African American achievements in Houston is beyond the scope ofRead… Read more »
“If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” On of the first-order axioms of management, and a mantra of spreadsheet jockeys everywhere. Benchmarking. Balanced Scorecard. SEO. What do they have in common – they are indirect measures of effectiveness. For an artist, which is more important – the tack hammer or the paint brush?Read… Read more »
I recently wrote a blog, rather unlike my usual blogs in that I told the true story of fellow worker; in this case he had no way out of his current negative job except unwanted retirement or quitting, or death. It was called simply, Finding the Way Out of a Coffin That is Nailed Shut,Read… Read more »
Taking on a team of first line managers is a challenging transition in the leadership pipeline – although, according to Charan, Drotter and Noel, it doesn’t get a lot of attention. If you’ve been making the natural progression from managing Self to managing Others to managing Managers, then you’ve been making quite a few adjustmentsRead… Read more »
By Alex Moll, Communications Officer, eRulemaking Program Management Office Next week, the eRulemaking Program Management Office (PMO) will release the first installment in a series of website developments scheduled over the course of 2012 as part of a redesign of Regulations.gov. The substantial redesign aims to effectively re-launch Regulations.gov to meet the goals of SectionRead… Read more »
Mobile Device Management is a growing solution in both the public and private sector. The United States Chief Information Officer Steven Van Roekel launched an initiative in January to increase the adoption rate of Mobile Technologies and by the end of March a comprehensive federal mobile technologies strategy should be released. The January initiative allowedRead… Read more »
What or whom does a leader follow? An interesting question posed after reading the following quote from former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” Its easy to think of this as a no-brainer of a quote coming from an elected official, but when you break itRead… Read more »
So many pieces of legislation and so little time for campaigners to come up with ways to inhibit/prohibit pay increases for Federal employees. Proposals are coming out of Washington like scud missiles but looking less like true, well-researched bills to address real concerns with Federal compensation. What’s next? Freezing promotions? Here’s an abridged list ofRead… Read more »
“If you give your employees the chance to learn and grow, they’ll thrive – and so will your organization,” says Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath in an article they wrote in the January-February 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review. Their article doesn’t focus on creating happy employees but rather “thriving” employees. They say the focusRead… Read more »
Recent activity – including the acquisitions of SuccessFactors by SAP and Rypple by Salesforce – is pumping new energy into web-based HR software in the HCM market. Things are clearly heating up in this sector, and investors have taken note. In the last two weeks, VC funds have been flowing into the human resources softwareRead… Read more »