#6Things: Females, Politics and Value

Not to get all political but…

If Congress were your coworker, you would actually hate them. Also, Chris Pine is pretty much EPIC in this thing. (digg)

If you’re a CEO and a Female

Well according to the World Economic Forum you are more likely to be blamed in the wake of a crisis. The study looked at over 100 news stories about 20 CEOs, 11 of whom were women, and found that female CEOs were blamed as the source of the crisis in 80% of the stories, while male CEOs were only blamed 31% of the time. Which is weird because women hold only 4% of leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies. (WeForum)

Feedback is no place for wimps

Want me to prove it? Well, check out this article in SHRM about how to give feedback to people who cry, yell or get defensive. This dovetails nicely with a private discussion about how to handle a millennial who threw a fit when given feedback. Over 90% of respondents (not scientific, I just counted) stated the manager should fire the person. This person received feedback, felt it was unwarranted and showed her displeasure by slamming a door and yelling. My response:

I work with a lot of young people. Very young and they’ve pulled everything under the sun. Each situation is different but I’ve learned a lot over the years. First thing is to tell her that if she ever does anything like that again it will result in her immediate termination, no excuses. Then explore why she did what she did and how she can better resolve situations in the future. Use her motivations (obviously one is prestige) to tell her how that behavior will make that goal impossible. Finally, if she did this in front of anyone else, make sure you speak with them as well. Not everyone who throws a fit should be fired. But not everyone who’s a millennial throws a fit.

Your thoughts?

(SHRM)

Wanna be a great boss?

Elon Musk shows you how in this incredible letter. Of course, this helps day to day managers very little except to show that it’s imperative to give meaning to a job before you let people know they best not defy the rules even ONE MORE TIME. (Inc)

Didja Know…

Recruitment technology and services is a legitimately HAYUGE industry? Techcrunch does. But here’s a real view of the Talent Acquisition landscape that may be more valuable to those immersed in the space. (TTL)

NO BS, NO FEE

William Tincup (@williamtincup) was recently seen pimpin this Atlassian Playbook for team management. He’s smart, so I downloaded. What are your thoughts? Great thought leadership or more of the same? (Atlassian)

Bonus:

IBM Watson and Udacity want devs to learn online

Google’s Keyword Planner says BYEBYEBYE

You Valuable Boo?

The Branchers

We build the best damn marketing campaigns on the planet. And we do it for industries and companies you might not identify as easy to market (right away). Working here takes a very special kind of person.