Ellipsis Advisor

Who do you hire

When you have an open position on your team, how do you go about filling it? The pressures of filling an open position can be pretty tough. Its a key position and t is needed on teh team to help deliver key objectives. So time is of the essence.  And yet we know that getting

Dante & Machiavelli mashup

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis – Dante Alighieri The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it – Niccolo Machiavelli A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence – Dante Alighieri

Risk

Read this in Fast Company on Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn: “Starting a company is like throwing yourself off the cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down,” he tells Bloomberg, with all the velocity, time pressure, and mortality that implies…an the prospect of making something that can fly before you hit the ground.”

Too accessible?

Being accessible to our people is important, but there is such a thing as being too accessible. On the one hand, being available to mentor and guide your employees is necessary for their development; necessary so that the perspective of your experience becomes a component of important decisions.  As a leader, you are developing your

Questions I have been asked

Can a manager be a coach? I think a manager’s obligation is to develop their employees both in practical tasks and leadership skills. While these are coaching attributes, I don’t believe that a manager can be a good coach for their employees, as coaching requires distance, perspective, the ability to coax the employee out of

Testing your limits

As individuals we are tasked everyday to test our limits… Test our limits of understanding Test our limits of patience Test our limts of preseverance Test our limits of endurance It’s good to know your capabilities, to set goals and to reach for them,  to stretch yourself and achieve more than you thought possible. But

Sir Richard Branson Quotes

People First “A company is people … employees want to know … am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really need to feel wanted.” “Having a personality of caring about people is important. You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you

Risk taking takes resolve

I’m reading a David Baldacci novel. One of the characters says ” It didn’t seem as risky when we were planning it”  to which he got the reply, “Planning something never seems risky. It’s in the execution where all the risk occurs .” When we agree to take a risk , when we set the

Oscar Wilde & Harold Pinter mashup

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go- Oscar Wilde   If you have only one of something you can’t say it’s the best of anything – Harold Pinter   I am not young enough to know everything – Oscar Wilde   There are some things one remembers even though they may never

Interviewing candidates and selling yourself

I was doing a performance review with one of my managers and we were discussing his inability to fill some key positions. It wasn’t the first time we were having this discussion. He told me that our competition was badmouthing us so he could’t convince talent to join us. I found that unacceptable and told