Summary: Promise and peril in implementing pay-for-performance

Summary of “Promise and peril in implementing pay-for-performance” by Michael Beer and Mark D. Cannon on 2004, Human Resource Management, volume 43, pages 3-48

Decades of empirical research in a variety of areas indicate that financial incentives are a potent motivator, however, despite the breadth and sophistication of topics being examined in research related to pay-for-performance, the crucially important issue of managers’ approach to implementation has not received much attention.

Significant potential problems with implementing pay-for-performance programs:

• Destructive effect on intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, teamwork, and creativity
• Motivate employees to focus excessively on doing what they need to do to gain rewards, at the expense of doing other things that would help the organization.

Summary: Has 360 degree feedback gone amock?

Summary of “Has 360 feedback gone amok?” by David A. Waldman, Leanne E. Atwater and David Antonioni published on May 1998, The Academy of Management Executive, Volume 12, Issue 2.

Three hundred and sixty degree feedback for an employee programs involve feedback from four sources:

• Downward from the supervisor
• Upward from the subordinates
• Laterally from peers
• Inward from the target employee himself

Summary: The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad

Summary of “The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad” by Caludio Fernandes-Araoz, Boris Groysberg, and Nitin Nohria published on Mayy, 2009, Harvard Business Review, page 87 (5)

Time of economic crisis provide a company with an opportunity to that advantage of the “buyers’ market” and fill in what is missing from their talent pools. That way they are well-prepared when the recession lifts.

Summary: Pygmalion in Management

Summary of “Pygmalion in Management” by J. Sterling Livinson published on 1969 Harvard Business Review, pages 81-89

Employee performance is directly linked to the manager’s expectations, high expectations lead to high performance.

Summary: Make Your Company a Talent Factory

The following is is quick summary of “Make Your Company a Talent Factory” by Douglas A. Ready and Jay A. Conger, published on June, 2007, Harvard Business Review, pages 68-77

Human resources executives from 40 companies around the world in 2005 indicated that they had an insufficient pipeline of high -potential employees to fill strategic management roles.

Summary: Talent management for the 21st Century

Following is a summary of “Talent management for the 21st Century” published on March, 2008, Harvard Business Review, pages 76-81.

At its heart, talent management is simply a matter of anticipating the need for human capital and then setting out a plan to meet it.

Ineffective talent management:

• Do nothing and anticipate no needs
• Rely on complex and bureaucratic models from the 1950s for forecasting and succession planning

New approach: Use supply chain management models

Summry: Serious Creativity

Follwing is my quick summary of an article by Edward de Bono fond at the following address:
http://www.debonogroup.com/serious_creativity.htm

There are far too many practitioners out there who believe that creativity is just brainstorming and being free to suggest crazy ideas. I intend to show that this is inadequate.

Brainstorming was designed for use in the advertising industry

Creativity does not have to be a group activity

First thoughts on Google+

The good: Nice UI, good integration with other Google services, for example I can see how many messages I got directly for the Google Reader page, no need to open a separate tab like I need with Facebook.

The Bad: The mostly empty gray area at the top of the screen takes up too much space, it ruins the experience on small-screen Netbooks where you find yourself scrolling too much. Even though they had Buzz already, they created yet-another micro-blogging service within the Google+ posts, how many of those will we need to keep manually synchronizing?