Auteur : Christophe

HeadHunter vs JobFishing

Nous sommes partis de deux constats:
1. Avoir une vision sur votre recherche d’emploi est une excellente source de motivation.
2. Apprendre des autres (astuces et erreurs) permet de gagner du temps.

Souhaitant mettre mes conseils et mon expertise technique au service de tous, je viens d’inaugurer le pilote sur quelques personnes du site de JobFishing.

Ce site met à votre disposition les outils pour être proactif et organisé  dans votre recherche de poste.

Trust but verify is wrong

By alpittampalli on Apr 16, 2012 05:00 am

On December 8, 1987, just before President Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, he uttered these famous words:

“Trust but verify.”

To say this phrase caught on would be a gross understatement. It was everywhere, from military platoons to corporate boardrooms to t-shirts and mugs. To this day, it remains embedded in American culture.

Not terribly surprising. It sounds like the ultimate deal: benefit from all the upside that comes with trust, while limiting the potential downside through verification.

But this is a fundamental misunderstanding. Trust and verify are two completely opposite strategies.

Trust is high variance. It comes with great potential for speed and innovation, but it also increases the chance that things won’t end up the way you want.

Example: Zappos trusts their call center reps with an unlimited budget for serving customers. Reps can act much quicker, with more spontaneity and humanity this way, but every now and then they make some costly mistakes.

On the other hand, verify is a low variance strategy. It’s more expensive, it’s slower, but you retain more control and there are less surprises.

Example: Many decisions at the BBC require six levels of approval. It’s hard to make mistakes when you have that much oversight, but getting even trivial issues resolved can take extraordinary amounts of time.

The INF treaty required both the United States and Soviet Union to inspect each other’s military installations extensively to ensure both parties were honoring their agreement.

It cost both countries tremendous time, money, energy, and focus. Don’t get me wrong, considering the immense risks involved, verify was the right strategy. But don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t trust.

The reason you trust is so that you don’t have to verify.

Source

14 tips for raising the bar on memo writing

When people don’t read your memos, it’s not because they don’t like you, it’s because your writing is dreadful.

In a world of text messages, tweets, and e-mails, our standard for reading anything longer than three sentences has gone way up. Here is a hodgepodge of tips that might help:

  • First, focus solely on creation. Get all your thoughts onto a page in their most primitive a form (I know of no better tool than freewriting for this). Organize those thoughts into a first draft.
  • Editing isn’t next, rewriting is. Your first try will almost never be as good as your second. If a memo is worth writing, it’s worth rewriting at least once.
  • Now edit. Eliminate every unnecessary word, sentence, or paragraph. Check for spelling and typo errors. Have someone else edit your work too if possible.
  • Use only one space after periods. If you’re still using two, people might be secretly making fun of you behind your back.
  • Formatting is astonishingly important. If you pack everything together as tightly as possible, people won’t read. White space is your friend.
  • Don’t be afraid to bold key information or highlight the call to action. Make it as easy for the reader as possible.
  • People love numbered lists and bullet points. Don’t you?
  • Don’t try to build suspense or take people on an emotional journey. This isn’t creative writing. Get to the point as quickly as possible.
  • Summaries and appendices are great because they give people the option to read less or more, respectively.
  • Could this be better done with recorded video or audio? Voice over slides is another viable option. Have the courage to ask this question right before you’re about to send. Sometimes you won’t realize it until the memo is done, but just because it’s already written doesn’t mean you should send it.
  • Humor is great. Unless someone died or is getting fired, use it liberally. Joel Spolsky points out that even bad humor works. People will laugh with you or at you, either way, at least they’re still reading.
  • Diagrams and pictures are heavenly and can dramatically reduce word count.
  • Use plain informal language. Read the memo out loud to yourself. Do you talk like that? If you don’t then why are you writing like that?
  • Read a writing blog. Someone that will push you to improve your skills regularly. Jeff Goins has a good one

Source

Conseils de développement d’un Leader

The best GE leaders I’ve been around are people who do two things all the time. No. 1, they do what they say they are going to do. Making commitments, and delivering on them, gives these leaders the personal “brand” and credibility that encourages others to support their next idea. No. 2, these leaders are who they say they are. Honest, genuine, transparent, and not trying to be something, or someone, they are not.

From John Rice