December 2009 Update
On Teams
On December 2nd, I attended a Birmingham Society of Human Resource Management (BSHRM) conference where Dave Ulrich was the speaker. Kudos to the BSHRM leadership www.bshrm.org for hosting this world-class speaker and author! Dave is a professor at the University of Michigan and also consults with companies worldwide. His style was refreshing, partly because he walked through the audience, facilitating discussion among some 200+ attendees, and speaking for an entire day.
When talking about individual competence vs. team competence, he pointed out that they are both important – but team competence is better. I knew this already, and am a big fan of “teams”. But it was the supporting illustrations that were of interest. The U.S. men’s Olympic Basketball 2004 Dream Team lost three games and wound up with a Bronze Medal, whereas the 2008 team won a Gold Medal handily. Ulrich attributes this at least in part to the 2008 team playing as a true team, as opposed to a hastily put together group of superstars. Similarly, he cited statistics demonstrating that Michael Jordan’s and Kobe Bryant’s individual scoring averages were lower in the years when their teams won NBA Championships.
Made me want to go back and research it further. I found an interesting quote from LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, when asked about the importance of team . . . (this was shortly before the 2008 Olympics). Here is the question and his answer:
Q - The NBA game can be more of an individual game, there's a lot more one-on-one, whereas the international game has more of a team concept. How do you transition to that?
A - That's not true. You look at NBA teams that have won championships and they've been team oriented. You look at Boston and San Antonio and the Bulls teams that have won, the Rockets teams that won, these are all team-oriented teams. An individual can take over a game, but at the end of the day you can only be successful if you have a great team.
Ulrich applied the principle to our businesses, as we focus on being the best at developing products and services for our customers. Good point!
On The Economy
According to the latest ExecuNet Recruiter Confidence Index (RCI) data recently released, recruiters are forecasting a double-digit increase in executive search assignments in 2010 following a brighter, but slower end to the current year.
According to November’s survey of 161 executive recruiters, the industries expected to generate the greatest growth in executive-level job opportunities include: Healthcare, Clean/Green Tech, Energy/Utilities, Life Science, and High Tech.
The top five functions expected to be in greatest demand in 2010 are: Business Development, Sales, Operations Management, Finance and Engineering.
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