Skip to main content

Letting Go Of Your Stars

I was ruminating about some discussions I have been having with some friends of mine around what are the chances of companies holding onto their star employees till they retire ? If the question was pondered on in the 70's or the 80's or the early 90's I would have said the chances are near 100 % but nowadays I would say that it is a lost endeavor ... The funny aspect of this is that I still find companies trying their hardest to keep their star employees when all they need to do is realize that they cannot hold onto their stars forever. Let me explain ...the real goal for leaders and organizations should be to have great people working with you, even after they have stopped working with you .... confused ... let me explain further ... Some of the best companies in the world actually celebrate their star employees leaving ... why ? because they are clear that they attract the best and the brightest to come and work for them and these people are hard to hold onto ..the companies realize that it is their job to create a value proposition which gets the stars to stay another day, another month, another year but ultimately, they know that its foolish to believe that good people will stay forever. The idea is to stay connected even after they leave your payroll .... how do you do it ? By turning them into advocates, clients and business partners for you ... forget the word "lifetime association" and forget the terms "ex-employees" or "former colleagues" ... smart companies are creating alumni networks using the many tools around like linkedin, facebook etc ...and they use the same networks when they need to source good people as well .... hope this was insightful ... have a good rest of the week ... Anand K Padmanaban
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commitment

What does commitment mean ? It is a word which has been much abused by individuals ... recently the issue around David Letterman - the talk show host of CBS has been the latest to abuse the word commitment .... commitment means devoting yourself to someone or something and honoring that choice ( however tough the obstacles maybe). Examples include committing yourself to a relationship with somebody , committing yourself to a cause etc ... I think it is really conviction which drives commitment. When we commit to something and when we are convinced about what we are committing to, then problems around not meeting the commitment etc do not arise ... I once met a friend who has been incredibly successful although he was not the smartest nor the best at what he did ... the one reason he shared that he was successful was that he never reneged on his commitment to others ... whatever he committed to, he delivered ... that is a BIG deal and it is one sure fire way to be successful .... Take ...
Post a Comment
Read more

COVID & The Making Of A Vaccine (460 BC till 1823 ; A journey through Greece, China and England)

There are around 70+ companies working on a vaccine for COVID-19 (Corona Virus) right now. It’s quite interesting to note that we have only ~22 vaccines available around the world .. for example we don’t have vaccines for malaria, Nipa virus etc but do have treatments for them. I was quite curious on the concept of vaccination and decided to research and see what’s up with this. Aided by wikipedia and research on the internet, I think it’s a very interesting history to the evolution of the vaccine.   THE GREEK CONNECTION   In fact the seeds for a vaccine probably started from 460 BC when a noted historian and writer (Thucydides) saw that some people became ill from the plague which was prevalent then and recovered and could tend to other sick without falling sick again.   THE CHINA CONNECTION   Fast forward to the middle ages and Plague, Smallpox were the major diseases which ravaged the world and at one point 1 out of every 3 were d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trust

Trust is a beautiful word, it has a positive spin to it and also a negative spin to it. It is in a sense like beauty, which is in the eye of the beholder. All of us examine the trustworthiness of our surroundings at work and at home. At home, we evaluate the trustworthiness of people who are with us all the time while at work, as a manager, we evalute trust of our employees, and employees scrutinize the trustworthiness of managers and organizational practices and organizations. Robin sharma the great man of wisdom says the deeper your relationship with others, the more effective your leadership. People will not follow you if they do not trust you, and before someone will lend you a hand, you must first touch their heart. Trust can be viewed as interpersonal trustworthiness generated or evidenced in organizational policies, practices and top leaders and managers “walking their talk.” The focus on top management has become more acute as the failures of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehman ...
Post a Comment
Read more