Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

My favorite business guru, Tom Peters, blogged recently that “hiring is the most important aspect of business” and I couldn’t agree more. I know down to my core that if we hire the right people, they will take care of our customers, they will be passionate about our business, and they will always strive to do the right thing.

Why is why, in addition to interviewing well and having great writing/coding samples, candidates for positions at Matrix Group must have great references. Paradoxically, we’re less inclined to hire a person with a perfect track record and perfect references, you know, the person who has never missed a deadline, never gone over budget, and never had a project go south. Why?

Because top talent has experienced some serious screw ups and they have recovered, and they have seen the impact of poorly managed or poorly engineered projects.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to hear about one screw up after another, but I do want candidates to tell me what they have learned from their mistakes and those of others, and how their experiences will help them avoid FUBARs in the future.

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• Tags: leadership, Matrix Group

Oren Harari does a masterful job of teaching execs how to compete in a copycat economy.

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• Tags: customer service, leadership

At a recent CEO forum, I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Schutz, former President of Porsche AG and author of the book “The Driving Force: Getting Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People.” Peter calls himself the former king of Porsche because, as he put it, Porsche is a cult, and when you become President, you become King.

I was captivated by Peter’s stories about Porsche’s turnaround during the early 80s. He
talked about the 24 hour Le Mans race that began the company’s turnaround. Porsche was not expected to win; the company was broke and did not have a new car to showcase. Peter told his staff, “We shall never enter a race we don’t intend to win.” And with that edict, the company rallied and ultimately won the race.

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• Tags: leadership