Hans Hickler Blog

Performance Reviews – changing with your employees

Let’s face it. Today’s generation has different expectations. They are more mobile, have different expectations, require more feedback, give more feedback. And how have we adjusted performance reviews? Not much. It is time to rethink how we engage with our employees around feedback. Think about doing more performance reviews with your employees, receiving and giving

Guest Blog – Henk Vlietstra

Be seen In boating, the captain needs to be seen to be in control, no matter how hairy the situation gets. It’s about keeping people calm and focused, letting people know that the leader is aware and has the situation under control. Its no different in business. As managers, we are often tempted, when there

How the dominoes tumble

Often when we develop strategy and business plans, we create priorities and align them with how we are organized. In other words, finance has their priorities, sales has theirs, the P&L s have theirs. While this is necessary to assign accountability, make sure you recognize that some priorities can’t be started until others have been

Don’t put the problem in its neat, little box

We like to solve things and in order to solve things we have to be able to define the problem. Often, in our haste to solve, we will categorize problems or issues into neat little boxes that we can address and put away. After all, small, simple problems means small, simple solutions, right? Take the

Perseverance

perseverance Definition: diligence, hard work Synonyms: backbone*, constancy, continuance, dedication, determination, doggedness, drive, endurance, grit, guts*, immovability, indefatigability, persistence, pertinacity, pluck,purposefulness, pursuance, resolution,stamina, steadfastness, stick-to-itiveness, tenacity Make perseverance an important part of your vocabulary. The alternative is no fun: apathy, idleness, indolence, laziness, lethargy

Play in your sandbox

Think of your business, your business plan, as the sandbox that you have decided to play in. You are not in the business of offering everything to everyone. Good business plans provide focus and direction to the organization. They define the sandbox in which your business will play.This does not mean that your business plan

Be part of the change

I moderated a panel with Latin America CEOs exploring how businesses are leveraging shared value models. How CEOs must prepare for a new world. How the bottom of the pyramid needs to be solved; that shared value models of applying your core business capabilities to solving the BOP poverty dilemma are an absolute priority. It

Two Lessons from Entrepreneurs

Working with entrepreneurs and startups brings some strong perspectives that big business can leverage: 1. Cash is king. Many businesses have failed because they ran out of cash, not because they were losing money. In big business we look at ratios – % outstanding receivables over 30,60,90 days, SGA as a % of revenue etc

Keys to Happiness

LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner in an interview defined his top 10 leadership lessons. One was “Understand what makes you happy”. His 5 keys to happiness: Stay in the moment. Step back and become a spectator to your own thoughts. It’s more important to be loving than to be right. Go out of your way to

Make time to train

I read a great Harvard Business Review Piece called “The Making of a Corporate Athlete”. (see my reading list) The article talks to the success criteria of athletes and how many of those criteria can apply to us as we manage our business and personal priorities. One of the premises it makes is that athletes