The New York Times featured an interesting and informative interview with William D. Green, CEO of Accenture, a Corporate Voices’ partner company. The interview — “68 Rules? No, Just 3 Are Enough” — covered a broad range of management and leadership issues.
Here are some excerpts:
Green: I was not a good student. I took what they call today a gap year, but back then it was called “finding yourself.” I did one of those, and I finally found my way into a two-year college. I went from an underperformer to a solid performer, with a little inspiration from some professors. That had a profound effect on me, to realize how much raw talent there is out there for us to exploit, leverage, take advantage of, and how much talent there is that people can give that organizations don’t mine, they don’t harvest, they don’t get the best of, because of structure, because of strategy, because of rules.
Q. So how do you break through?
A. I once sat through a three-day training session in our company, and this was for new managers, very capable people who were ready for a big step up. I counted, over three days, 68 things that we told them they needed to do to be successful, everything from how you coach and mentor, your annual reviews, filling out these forms, all this stuff.
And I got up to close the session, and I’m thinking about how it isn’t possible for these people to remember all this. So I said there are three things that matter. The first is competence — just being good at what you do, whatever it is, and focusing on the job you have, not on the job you think you want to have. The second one is confidence. People want to know what you think. So you have to have enough desirable self-confidence to articulate a point of view. The third thing is caring. Nothing today is about one individual. This is all about the team, and in the end, this is about giving a damn about your customers, your company, the people around you, and recognizing that the people around you are the ones who make you look good.
Corporate Voices for Working Families and Working Mother Media will present U.S. Senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives with the Best of Congress award, recognizing their leadership in improving the quality of life for working families by partnering with business to create long-term solutions to work-life issues. Winners will be profiled in the August/September 2010 issue of Working Mother Magazine.
Members of Congress are invited to apply and will be judged on their voting record, sponsored/co-sponsored legislation, and efforts to promote legislation that supports working families. In addition, applicants will be asked to submit policies and practices within their own offices that support their employees and flexible workplace options. January 15, 2010, is the deadline for submissions.
Members of Congress can access the questionnaire for the Best of Congress award at http://wmmsurveys.com/BOCReg.html.
The inaugural Best of Congress award, presented to 24 members of Congress in 2008, attracted widespread news media coverage and highlighted the accomplishments of the recipients with constituents and with business, government and community leaders.
Applications will be reviewed by a bipartisan steering committee co-chaired by Ted Childs, Founder and Principal of Ted Childs, LLC and Jane Swift, Founder and Principal of WNP Consulting, LLC and former Governor of Massachusetts. Other steering committee members are Pat Schroeder, former President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers and former Congresswoman from Colorado, and Deborah Pryce, attorney at Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice and former Congresswoman from Ohio.
The Best of Congress award will be presented to winning members of Congress at an awards breakfast in September 2010 in Washington, D.C.
More information about the Best of Congress award is available on our Corporate Voices Web site.
Without question, the Great Recession has touched lives throughout this country through job losses — and the Obama administration is planning to renew the focus on employment and jobs creation at a jobs summit now scheduled for Dec. 3. At the same time, employees and employers have been addressing issues about careers and work/life balance.
Put members of Gen X — referred to as those 32- to 44-year-olds who are in between the baby boomers and younger workers (Gen Y) — as those having some serious reservations about their careers today and in the years ahead.
Here’s from an Associated Press article — based on a study by Corporate Voices partner company Deloitte — by Martha Irvine that provides some interesting perspective on an important workplace and workforce readiness issue, “Recession intensifies Gen X discontent at work“:
Now, in this latest recession, nearly two-thirds of baby boomer workers, ages 50 to 61, say they might have to push back their retirement, according to a recent survey from Pew Research.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the age spectrum are Gen Yers, who are often cheaper to hire and heralded for their coveted high-tech knowledge, even though many Gen Xers consider themselves just as technologically savvy.
And more:
They’re antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too.
Publications, research studies and toolkits on a host of other workforce readiness, flexibility, family economic stability, and work and family balance issues are also available on the Corporate Voices Web site.
