TORC

Software applications continue to help office productivity

Here are 3 nifty little software tools that make my life easier every day. Check them out, if you are in need of a little personal productivity boost!

CutePDF
From the author:

“CutePDF Writer is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a “printer subsystem”. This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents – with just a push of a button!
 
FREE for commercial and non-commercial use!  No watermarks!  No Popup Web Ads! “

I’ve been using it for the last year and have found it excellent. Documents created are of good quality, even when creating pdf’s containing images which sometimes cause problems for competitive products.

You can download it here.

Effective File Search
From the author:

“Effective File Search (EFS) is a powerful but easy to use search tool. Search any files on your computer or local network with this effective software. EFS is a real replacement for the Windows Search utility. You can save a lot of time with this excellent file search tool.

Registration costs US $29.95 for a single user. “

You can download it here.

This tool is not free, but it doesn’t break the bank. What I like about this little tool most, is that I can search any database with multiple keywords. It comes especially handy when I am looking for some specific, relatively rare words. It allows entering up to 4 different keywords. Windows Search utility only allows me really to search for one single keyword. It saves me loads of time and results are great!

Kuler  – Explore, create and share color themes
From the author:

“Adobe® Kuler™ is the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community. Kuler is available online at no charge”

To read detailed information on this tool, click here.

To go straight to the Kuler tool site, click here.

If you happen to play with colours, create brochures, ads, posters, power point presentations…anything that involves colour matching – then this tool maybe for you. It certainly saves me loads of time in my work!

Works like a dream!

PS. For details on Torc’s suite of learning & development programmes, please click here. To see some illustrative case studies, please click here.

The Irish Executive Job Market continues to seek candidates

We are currently seeking suitably qualified candidates for the following 5 positions: 

COO
Succcessful Irish company in process control & automation technology for home and international markets. Expected to ‘hit the ground running’ we seek an energetic business leader to provide direction to sales operations and input to strategic business planning and development. The role will require a proven capacity to manage a sales driven organisation structure, systems, markets etc and deliver excellent results in the short/medium term. 

Human Capital Lead – EMEA
Responsible for talent demand planning, talent acquisition strategies, talent development, succession planning and organisation design throughout EMEA region. This is an exciting new role for a leading MNC with a global footprint.

Retail Sales Manager
Opportunity to join a leading international supplier of computer products, storage devices and consumer electronics.

The key objective is to achieve retail sales volume targets through Multiples, Retail Chains, Independent Key Accounts. We seek excellent sales skills in the consumer electronics arena and a strong retail network.

Account Manager
A well established and successful Irish customer service & technology company with major client accounts in Ireland, UK and Europe wishes to appoint an Account Manager for two of its major business partners.

Proven capacity to develop new business opportunities with major accounts and deliver innovative campaign marketing plans with partner organisations is essential.

Project Manager
Electronics manufacturer in the automotive industry. 

Operational manager of a Project Team, driving a portfolio of projects, from business acquisition to plant transfer, ensuring a flawless product launch, achieving the defined project objectives (Quality, Timing, Project Cost, Gross Margin, Performance, Customer Satisfaction) etc.  

For further information, please contact Paddy Collins on 01-662 30 20 or email directly pc@torc.ie.

PS. For some useful tips on how to best navigate the various recruitment stages, please click on the appropriate word here: interview preparation, panel interviews, assessment centres and career change.

Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck: wacky embodiments of tenacity & resilience

In his 1988 autobiography, Mel Blanc, the voice behind so many cartoon characters, tells how, following a serious car accident in 1961, he was miraculously brought back from a coma.

After 3 weeks of mounting frustration, his doctor found the key in an innocent throw-away question: “how are you today, Bugs Bunny”.

To which, Blanc awakened with a response straight from the wise-cracking wabbit’s  mouth:

 “Eh … just fine, Doc”.

Resilience & tenacity in the cartoon strips
Looney Tunes’  fans wouldn’t be surprised, I’m sure.

After all, how many times have Bugs, Daffy and the Road Runner themselves been flattened, only to instantly come back to fight another day.  

And, how equally their arch rivals (Elmer Fudd and Wild E. Coyote) never give up, no matter how many times they are outwitted, humiliated or made a fool of.   

For, in the world of the comic strip and animation, we are all very comfortable with the extraordinary degrees of resilience and tenacity displayed.

Resilience & tenacity in real life
But in real life, these qualities don’t seem to come quite as naturally.

Consider the case of the individual who in 1980 sold his rights to the original PC operating system for just $50k - to Bill Gates, who in turn, went on to license it to IBM & set the stage for Microsoft’s future dominance.

Or, the Xerox executives who, at about the same time, ordered their Palo Alto Reseach Center to give away their object orienting programming to Steve Jobs – who grabbed it with open arms to launch the Mac revolution.

These examples speak to how short-term hurdles can obscure future possibilities in some and not in others – and, how this can be the key ingredient leading to resilience differences in people.    

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs - transcending vision
For, Gates & Jobs were themselves also going through a tricky patch at the time.

In both cases, their in-house development attempts were in serious trouble – Gates was behind on his operating system and Jobs’ Apple 2 was (in his own words) ‘running out of gas’.

Gates & Jobs, however,  both had a transcending vision for their companies and this was the fire in the belly that had them prospecting on the outside for solutions to get over any immediate hurdles.  

The contrast with Xerox was telling, as Jobs himself explained in a PBS documentary:

”Basically they (Xerox) were copier heads that just had no clue about a computer or what it could do. And so they just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today. Could have been you know a company ten times its size”

Gates & Jobs: common traits of resilience
Gates & Jobs are often seen as quite different personalities – Jobs the artist and Gates the businessman.

Nonetheless, thirty years on, we can see that, in large part, it is their common traits of resilience and tenacity that has been most to the fore throughout their careers – as Dan Farber, editor-in-chief at CNET and a longtime observer of both remarked in a 2007 broadcast:

“I think of their tenacity, I think that they are very persistent and have a very strong vision and know what they want and tend to get things done and that is how they have survived for so long and be able to stay on top ….. they are basically pretty much the same from a personality, from a work ethic, from just the way they handle things, as they were thirty years ago”.

Seligman’s model of resilience
And, the good news for the  rest of us, according to University of Pennsylvania professor,  Martin Seligman,  is that such resilience is not innately magical, but rather readily learnable - with training and practice.

Seligman’s model operates along 3 dimensions: personalization, pervasiveness and permanence (the 3 p’s).

Accordingly, when we suffer a setback, Seligman advises that we simply need  to keep things in perspective - by rationalising the setback in terms of time, scope and personal responsibility.

This mindset restores balance by having us see that the setback mostly involves:

1. aspects for which we are not responsible  -  ie. it is not all personal
2. scope ranges  that remain unaffected  -  ie. it is not all pervasive, and
3. time durations that will pass  -  ie. it is not all permanent.

The result is a glass that is always …  more than half-full!

PS. No. 1.  For details on our Leading with Resilience, 1-day training programme, please click here.

PS. No. 2  For a related piece of ours, featured in the Irish Times, Friday, Aug. 27, 2010, please click here. 

Brian Clough and team before the 1974 Leeds-Liverpool Charity Shield game

The story of Brian Clough’s infamous 44 days in charge of Leeds United is well dramatised in the 2009 movie, Damned United. 

The movie begins with Don Revie, the club’s then manager for 13 years, in a press conference announcing his resignation, on being offered the job of managing the national team. His words were to prove a hostage to fortune: 

“I’d like to think I’ve built the club into a family. Now, there must be sadness when anyone leaves the family. However, when one man leaves, another man steps into his place, I know whom I think that man should be, the person to replace me. And, I’ve made my feelings clear to the board of directors”. 

Revie’s family persists at Leeds
Revie wanted his mid-field general, John Giles, to replace him and keep continuity in the formula that had brought the club two First Division League titles, as well as an FA Cup, League Cup and Charity Shield. 

The board, in choosing Brian Clough instead, were obviously hoping that a fresh voice in the dressing room would propel them on to even greater success, in the form of a European Cup, which had eluded them under Revie.  

However, the cohesive family that Revie had built did not take kindly to Clough and after the team chalked up 5 early defeats, the Leeds’ board terminated his contract.  

Strategy and culture
Clough’s strategy was simple, as he revealed in the now famous TV interview that he did in the company of Revie for ITV within hours of being sacked. 

He reasoned that to really achieve greatness, the players would have to give up on the Revie playbook, characterised by a very methodical, and at times overly physical approach and go full out to play the beautiful game with flair and panache. 

Unfortunately, he had completely underestimated and neglected to manage the resistance that inevitably sprang from the players’ strong bonds with the former boss – a particular case in point being his failure to recognise their comforting attachment to Revie as a father figure and to the ritual preparations and innocent superstitutions that he used employ. 

Clough had met the enemy and it was the Leeds’ culture. 

Organisational culture & business
The same issue confronts business leaders whenever change is called for. 

Several studies confirm that a clash of cultures between the partners is often the biggest challenge to be overcome in making a merger & acquisition work. 

One type of union that seems particularly problematic is that between entities having radically different control philosophies – where the entrepreneurial and the conservative inevitably make for troublesome bedfellows. 

Culture & the AOL-Time Warner merger
The doomed  AOL-Time Warner merger is a clear example, as Time Magazine’s  Josh Quittner explained in 2009: 

“I blame the company’s curious entrepreneurial culture — curious because, while entrepreneurship is highly prized here, the jefes who run the big operating units still prefer the safety and comfort of a large corporation …. And that creates powerful fiefdoms where divisions don’t cooperate with each other and synergy becomes a bad word”.

It took AOL’s Steve Case 6 years to see the writing on the wall and recommend a split-up as the only way out of the cultural differences being encountered.    

Culture & the Daimler-Chrysler merger
On the other hand, cultural misunderstandings more than differences appear to have been at the heart of the equally noteworthy Daimler-Chrysler fiasco.

This 1998 transatlantic union, billed as ‘an historic merger of mass with class’, was expected to provide Daimler with a entrepreneurial partner that could move nimbly to respond to consumer tastes in the small car segment.

However, Daimler had failed to recognise that the key individuals responsible for Chrysler’s entrepreneurial culture had chosen to walk away rather than be part of the merger.

This misunderstanding led to 2 years of drift at Chrysler – the weakened Chrysler leadership waiting for Daimler to take the reins and the Daimler side restraining themselves from interfering, lest they spoil the culture they thought they had bought.

In 2001, Daimler’s CEO, Jergen Schrempp finally woke up to what was happening with a frustrating cry (quoted in a Dartmouth case study):

“What happened to the dynamic, can-do cowboy culture I bought?”

Strategy & culture entwined
Yes, indeed, when it comes to organisational change, strategy and culture are inextricably entwined.

Unfortunately, culture can often be the forgotten strand; even, if ultimately, it’s the invisible hand that proves most decisive.

Peter Drucker probably put it best in one of his characteristically vivid mantras: 

“culture eats strategy for breakfast”.

His choice of breakfast (over lunch) being particularly powerful – it being the most important meal in the day, after all!

PS. To see a related case study, please click here.

Diana Ross's 'Do you know where you are going to': a timeless question

“Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?
Where are you going to? do you know?…” 
                                                        by Diana Ross

Having worked in the recruitment of professional level candidates for clients for over 15 years I am still astonished at how few people actually have a real plan for their futures.

This is even more shocking when I am referring to the very best talent and performers in their particular fields.

My observation is that most career moves are haphazard and generated by an unexpected opportunity or an approach by a Head-hunter.

As we all patiently await the return of serious economic growth and the likely upsurge in career opportunity I suggest now is the time to prepare for the future. 

There are many models of career planning but all fundamentally require rigorous self analysis and self awareness to determine the following about ourselves: fundamental career anchors (motivators), personal values, preferred work environments, skills & competencies, development needs, &  life interests.

A thorough analysis of the above will enable any candidate produce a range of realistic and appropriate career options to further evaluate and prioritise.

The final element of the jigsaw is committing the number 1 option into an action and development plan designed to achieve personal career targets over the next 5 – 10 years.

You will find your career plan a helpful tool and well worth the investment of your time and effort. 

 PS. For a related powerpoint presentation on Career Planning, please click here.

The Cuckoo Clock scene from The Third Man - Joseph Cotten & Orson Welles

The title of Peter Mandelsohn’s recent autobiography, The Third Man, is a clever take from the 1949 movie of the same name, starring Orson Welles as the shadowy Harry Lime.

The movie is a film noir classic, renowned for the Graham Greene screenplay, the Anton Karas theme music, and director, Carol Reed’s oblique angle shots; the latter famously prompting Hollywood’s Willie Wyler into making him a gift of a spirit-level – ‘to help keep the camera straight next time!’ … (as retold by Reed in Charles T. Samuels Encountering Directors book, 1972).

The Machiavellian reputation
It also gives us those much-quoted lines (apparently added by Welles himself), that Harry uses to console his friend, Holly, in explaining his move to the dark side:

‘Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.’

The quote encapsulates the old dictum of the end justifying the means – and Mandelsohn’s publishers are obviously using these dark side resonances from the movie to reinforce their subject’s own Machiavellian reputation.

Machiavelli & contemporary management
How amusing Machiavelli himself would find it all – that is, of course, assuming his fellow Florentine, Leonardo Da Vinci, could have done him the needful and invented a time-machine to get him the required 500 years into the future!

And, if he did actually succeed in visiting, what would Machiavelli make of current management practices, one wonders?

Doubtless, he would be intrigued to see how so many of the ideas, from his own dimly distant and brutish times, have taken hold – in areas, such as mergers and acquisitions, change management and competency frameworks.

Machiavelli on mergers & acquisition
He would certainly be impressed with all the talk about synergy and overlap that so dominates takeover announcements today – and, particularly, with the manner and speed, corporations set about deciding which employees to retain or let go.

And, he would be no stranger either to the differing categories involved, whether hostile or friendly – and to the competitive drivers at work: ego, dominance & survival.

Machiavelli on change management
He would be amazed how his words on the difficulties of change have achieved doctrinal proportions:

“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a leader in the introduction of changes.  For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only the lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.   This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event”.

And, how fitting to his celeb status, would he find how his belief, in immediate overwhelming force, has been rebranded - with its very own sound-bite/buzz word: shock & awe.

Machiavelli on competency frameworks
But the all-out adoption of competency frameworks by organizations is probably what would give him the most satisfaction: he would find it particularly flattering to see how the logical layout and breakdown he deployed in writing The Prince is so closely mirrored in these structured approaches to leadership development.  

For, Machiavelli loved imitators and would surely allow himself to take a bow, in recalling his own words:  

 ’A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme’

Machiavelli & the misplaced connotations 
Over the years, Machiavelli’s name has been wrongly equated with the tyrants, described in his writings.

Here, one line from the introduction to The Prince has proven strangely prophetic:

‘you will see how I suffer a great and continued malignity of fortune’

A recent biography claims that this is just a bad case of ‘shooting the messenger’.

How ironic then to see how well the messenger’s message has actually survived.

For the management insights of another great Italian (Giovanni Trapattoni), please click here.

Torc's Izabela Turek receives Fetac accreditation from Minister Sean Haughey

We are delighted to announce that Torc has received FETAC accreditation.

The Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC) is the statutory awarding body for further education and training in Ireland.

FETAC makes quality assured awards that are part of the National Framework of Qualifications from levels 1-6. Meeting learner need is central to the work of FETAC. 

From the Autumn, 2010, Torc will be providing accredited programmes, initially in Change Management and Organisational Effectiveness and also in a range of Personal Development areas. These programmes will be posted on our website in late August.

Pictured above is Izabela Turek, Office Manager receiving the FETAC award on behalf of Torc from Sean Haughey, Minister of State at the Department of Education for Lifelong Learning, accompanied by Stan McHugh, CEO, FETAC.

PS. For details on Torc’s suite of learning & development programmes, please click here. To see some illustrative case studies, please click here.

Legendary GE CEO, Jack Welch: a Leader-as-Teacher idol to so many

Readers of Noel Tichy will be well aware of his admiration for a certain type of leader: those who see a major part of their role as being that of a teacher. 

As head of GE’s famed leadership development center, Crotonville, Tichy worked closely with CEO, Jack Welch, in leading the transformation to action learning.

Welch wasn’t just his boss, but very much his idol as well.

Jack Welch in the role of teacher
Tichy, of course, is not alone, in rating Welch as the greatest CEO of the 20^th century – an accolade also bestowed on him by Fortune Magazine in 1999. 

And, in the Cycle of Leadership, Tichy leaves us in no doubt as to the underlying criteria he uses in coming to his opinion: 

“Jack Welch’s secret was the fact that he was constantly teaching. He ran sessions… every couple of weeks … with senior executives. But perhaps most importantly, he was always teaching, no matter what else he was doing. If you had a meeting with Welch, no matter what the topic, you could expect a quick coaching clinic at the end.” 

Business Week reporter, John Byrne, was equally impressed by Welch’s devotion to teaching, as he recounted in his classic cover story from 1998; 

“Jack Welch arrives early at the GE training centre … He scoots down to the Pit – the well of a bright, multitiered lecture hall … peels off his blue suit jacket… this is face-to-face with … Professor Welch, coach and teacher to 71 high-potential managers attending a three-week development course … in this classroom, where Welch has appeared more than 250 times … to engage some 15,000 GE managers and executives.” 

Pepsi & Intel also embace the teacher-leader model
Former Pepsi CEO, Roger Enrico, was equally bitten with the teaching bug: at one stage in his career he stepped out of a key operations role for a sabbatical dedicated to setting up what he called a “war college,” where he mentored and coached 110 of PepsiCo’s most promising executives in groups of nine on five-day leadership programmes. 

While,  at Intel, Andy Grove was often found leading induction classes for new recruits and making his home in an open cubicle rather than in a closed office, so he could better engage as teacher to his wider Intel team on the floor.

BD Medical, Avnet & 3M latest evangelists
This leader-as-teacher trend continues to gather steam amid the current crop of Fortune 500 business leaders, as well: with BD Medical’s Ed Ludwig, Avnet’s Roy Vallee and 3M’s George Buckley major evangelists.

Avnet has bought into the practice to such an extent that it has built a formal train-the-trainer business process around the whole activity.

Courses delivered by senior executives are offered quarterly at key locations in Europe, Asia and at Avnet’s US Global HQ in Phoenix, Arizona to an audience composed of future Avnet leaders.

Nothing is left to chance.

All new courses pass through a one-day content development workshop, all speakers undergo formal train-the-trainer preparation, and ROI criteria are established and measured.

Learning & Development and Succession Planning
The point is: these are looked on as strategically important learning & development programmes within an overall succession planning framework and not just as one-off, motivational, feel-good events.

These CEO’s, in rolling up their sleeves to engage widely in such teaching activities, are sending a powerful signal to their organizations with regard to the importance of learning – as a systems level asset that stays within the organization, even if individuals change role or leave.

By their behaviour, these teaching CEO’s are setting an example for all their followers, in how to build sustainable capability – by cascading the teacher role downwards through the whole organization.

Leader-as-Teacher demands investment
Inevitably, these developments place new demands on the internal training department: with respect to honing the necessary teaching skills in-house – and, stimulating a greater demand all round for train-the-trainer-type programmes.  

The extra demands placed on the teacher-leaders themselves are equally significant.

In a recent interview in  USA Today, 3M’s Buckley reckoned that he was personally spending about one fifth of his time on these initiatives.

The GE rationale still rules
Still, the alternative of not doing it would be even more costly.

In this context, it is worth recalling how Jack Welch himself famously rationalized the value of training:

“Some organizations worry that if they train their people, they’ll leave; I worry that if we don’t train them, they’ll stay.”

 PS. To learn about Torc’s 3-day Train-The-Trainer programme, please click here

The Irish Executive Job Market continues to seek candidates

We are currently seeking suitably qualified candidates for the following 4 positions: 

VP Sales
Opportunity to join one of the largest independent manufacturers of building controls in Europe. Based at Dublin head-office this role reports to CEO and will provide direction and leadership to the sales and operations functions of the business. A well rounded and well qualified strategic business leader and executive manager is sought. This is a strongly market facing role requiring a background in B2B sales, ideally in an energy related environment.

Financial Controller
This job is offered by market leader in servicing retail, foodservice, wholesale and manufacturing customers.The Financial Controller will facilitate the continuing growth and development of the business. Based in head office, and reporting to the Managing Director, the appointed candidate will be responsible and accountable for all finance and administrative related activities and, as a member of the senior management team, will contribute to the strategic development of the company. The successful candidate will have a recognised professional accounting qualification with a minimum 5 years post qualification experience at financial controller/management level. 

Sales Manager
This role is offered by leading supplier and distributor to the hardware sector. The sales manager will establish a network of regional agents throughout Ireland and will also sell direct to independent hardware and garden supply merchants. The ideal candidate should be a highly motivated, self driven sales professional with 3 – 5 years experience in the garden machinery or merchanting sectors. 

Marketing Executive
Reporting to the Marketing Manager and an integral part of the Marketing and Account Management team, the successful candidate will be a well-rounded individual who will work on aspects of marketing for the company and its client programmes.  This challenging role includes strategy development, planning, advertising, promotion, public/media relations, service development, forecasting and market research across all our target markets.

For further information, please contact Paddy Collins on 01-662 30 20 or email directly pc@torc.ie.

PS. For some useful tips on how to best navigate the various recruitment stages, please click on the appropriate word here: interview preparation, panel interviews, assessment centres and career change.

Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho in recent job moves at Inter Milan

As we approach the traditionally slow summer period, I thought I might share some thoughts on the Irish job market …  

First the good news – some new jobs are beginning to emerge, especially in technology and sales/business development. This trend we expect to continue as we move through 2010, because many companies have had an embargo on recruitment for 12-18 months now, while the economy seems to have (modestly) returned to growth in the first half of the year.  

Interestingly, very few new candidates are voluntarily entering the recruitment market – people are still very risk aware and are reluctant to make a career move until the growth picture gets further confirmed through Q3 & Q4.  

Ironic as it may seem, this means that some Irish employers are still finding difficulties in filling vacancies that need some specific skillset requirements – despite  aggregate unemployment levels of 13.4%.  

On the other side, where viable candidates do exist, the recruitment process seems to be taking far longer than heretofore. Reasons vary from company to company, but might include a reluctance to actually make the hire (and add to headcount cost), lack of clarity surrounding internal processes and ownership, or a tendency to ‘play the market’ until an ‘ideal’ candidate comes along.  

The impact of the web and the use of social media for directly connecting candidates with job postings still remains somewhat unclear in the Irish context, though we are noticing some activity with companies seeking support with researching Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter – on the trail of profiles which are relevant to their business.  And,  candidates are being “Googled” and their web profiles reviewed as part of the early screening and assessment process.  

This trend is likely to pick up further as the market returns to normality going into 2011. Big e-Brother is sure to be watching!

PS. For some useful tips on how to best navigate the recruitment process, please click on the appropriate word here: interview preparation, panel interviews, assessment centres and career change.