The alarm that has been ringing in the ears of senior managers and business owners lately has become louder and more painful as they see retirements and job-hopping drain their organizational “brain power.” It has become all too obvious that companies have not done a very good job of documenting and retaining the knowledge of their key personnel and subject matter experts.Every organization can learn a lesson from British Petroleum.In February 2006 a small leak in a quarter-inch hole in the Prudhoe Bay pipeline was discovered. By August 2006, oil spills forced a shutdown of the largest U.S. oilfield. Overnight, 8% of domestic oil production was shut down and hundreds of thousands of crude oil was spilled.A Congressional investigation followed and it was discovered that BP’s senior corrosion engineer retired just a few years earlier. The job had been left unfilled for more than a year creating a huge knowledge gap. This vacancy, and others, hindered BP’s ability to maintain a strategic view of its corrosion prevention activities.Clearly, BP did not document nor retain the knowledge of its senior corrosion engineer. But BP is not unique. Unfortunately poor knowledge management and lack of talent planning is strangling many […]
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Retirement can be a discouraging concept. The stock market and the housing market are both precarious at best. 401K’s have become a blessed resource for emergency loans, or withdrawals. Fewer employers offer any sort of pension plan, and the average American worker is left to toil away well passed the anticipated retirement age of 65.It seems so frustrating to work hard your whole life, diligently contributing to retirement accounts, only to see the value drop, sometimes drastically. Your house has commonly been referred to as your “greatest asset”, but many Americans find their houses are worth less than what they owe to the bank. That retirement beach house or the long European vacation that you once dreamed about probably seem distant, if attainable at all. Instead, you might feel pressured into working well past retirement age. Heaven forbid you should incur large medical bills, or other large expenses. This could mean bankruptcy for many.Take courage, however, there is hope for those who are willing to learn a few basics about personal finance and apply them toward retirement. One of my favorite sayings goes like this: “if don’t want what everyone else […]
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In the first three parts of this series we have looked at goal setting, the process and the real research behind this to find out what makes a difference.It seems that there is considerable support for the idea of SMART goals, yet there are still some issues with what the goal is. Is it an outcome or about performance?Outcome goals - some issuesThe problem facing many people with regard to ‘Outcome’ goals is that there is an element that is outside the power of the individual. An example of the potential issues with an ‘outcome’ goal comes from a rather sad testimony from one particular research participant:”My goal was to have $3 million in the bank for my retirement by age 55. I achieved my goal with great satisfaction early at age 43. Unfortunately my bank was at the centre of a fraud and went under. 16 years later, I am still working and slowly rebuilding my goal. So, goals are important and we need to know what we want to achieve in life - just choose a goal only including yourself and don’t leave all of it in one place.”Outcome goals are most often subject to others and to […]
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