“You take what you can get in order to pay rent, buy food, she explains. If you can find a group that might have potential for hiring on permanently, you take the risk of staying around and putting in a lot of hours, proving yourself to these folks.

She says she has been in several Microsoft groups that wanted to hire her but couldn’t because, she was told, the group lacked head count or had a hiring freeze. So, she says, you continue to be a contractor. Working holidays. Or just simply eating the time. Or even making up time when you get sick.

It is a risk on so many levels when contracting. But to be led to believe that you have a possibility of being hired on permanently and then not, well, it’s almost like a big lottery game with these folks.”

Sumpreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Microsoft “permtemp” settlement, Mike Blain, WashTech News (November 13, 2002)

When Jeff Nugent from CW Solutions directed me to the above referenced landmark case in the context of his firm’s value proposition, ...

>Recently, I had the opportunity to exchange ideas on
>the veracity of the various models that organizations
>rely upon as the framework for building a successful
>enterprise.

>What prompted this open and productive exchange of
>ideas was a question that was recently posed regarding
>the merits of Forrest Breyfogle’s latest book on
>Integrated Enterprise Excellence (or for those of you
>that have a penchant for acronyms, IEE).

>In the following paragraphs I will share a few of the
>more meaningful discussion streams starting with the
>original question.

>Original Question:

>I recently read one of Forrest Breyfogle’s new books in
>his 4 book-volume series on the Integrated Enterprise
>Excellence (IEE) System; i.e., “The Integrated
>Enterprise Excellence System: An Enhanced, Unified
>Approach to Balanced Scorecards, Strategic Planning,
>and Business Improvement.” The subtitle to this book
>describes what is covered in varying details in the
>other three volumes. My sense is that Breyfogle ...

Question:

Given a choice between a competent jerk and a lovable fool, who would you prefer to work with?


Question Submitted By:
Sandeep Walia
MIS Manager, International Supply Chain
L'OREAL

France

My Answer:

As human beings I am certain that we all have at one point in time or another fallen into either one of these two categories.

Your question reminds me of a story I had once read about Willard Scott the famed weatherman.

Early in his career, Willard worked for a boss whom he considered to be both unreasonable and incompetent. In fact the acrimony between the two was so great that Willard and his partner's hit program was moved to what was affectionately called the "graveyard shift" time slot.

Willard was of course furious and came within a breath of quitting. (Think what that might have done to his career given its eventual course to stardom.)

Instead he made the decision to buckle down and made the best of a difficult situation ultimately taking his program to the number ...

Question:

How do we effectively measure SOA pay off?? Some benefits, such as improved customer service, might be difficult to quantify. But others, like increased productivity and cost savings, should be measured. Any idea’s on how??


Question Submitted By:
Anoop Kumar
Development Manager of Enterprise Services (SOA) Group
Harrah's Operating Company, Inc.

Memphis

My Answer:

In their 2001 book, The Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights into eBusiness Transformation, authors Mohanbir Sawhney and Jeff Zabin discussed the emergence of the Metaprise and in particular its impact on enterprise application development. Sawney and Zabin referred to it as meta-enterprise software development. I would strongly recommend that you read the book as it provides a useful hindsight perspective that is both interesting and informative today.

In short a Metaprise is a synchronized versus sequential architecture (private hub) that leverages the Internet to simultaneously link or incorporate the unique ...

Question:

How to motivate people to accept and work with a newly implemented ERP system? How to overcome resistance and change the employees mindset?

Question Submitted By:
Kai-Uwe Sielaff
Sales&Marketing Professional / Senior Commercial Management [LION] (Kai-Uwe.Sielaff@email.de)

Viet Nam

My Answer:

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins made reference to the Doom Loop and Flywheel concepts.

In the former, corporate leadership builds their strategy based on misinformation and therefore lack a clear understanding of the real challenges their organizations’ face. They then attempt to implement an initiative which after failing to solicit feedback from key stakeholders does not receive the required buy-in. The initiative then flounders and as a result cannot gain the necessary traction to drive positive results. Before you know it, the company is back at square one. (Once again refer to the 75 to 85% rate of initiative failure.)

Conversely, the good to great companies (the majority of ...

In an excerpt from a November 20th post in the Procurement Insights Blog titled "How Leadership Repeatedly Under-Mines Their Most Valuable Procurement Asset" (see below), I discussed the impact that current procurement policies and environments have on purchasing professionals within their respective organizations.

Question: From your perspective as a senior executive, how would you have avoided a situation like the one referenced in the post? How does policy either motivate or undermine employee performance?

Blog Excerpt:

At a recent conference in which my Dangerous Supply Chain Myths seminar was introduced to a new audience, I was related a story that was both compelling and disconcerting. Compelling in that it clearly demonstrated a lack of stakeholder collaboration, disconcerting in that it is an occurrence that is played over and over again within public and private sector organizations throughout North America.

The TJ Max Mantra

Like the large U.S Retailer T.J. Max whose slogan is “get ...