Some Whole Foods Lore

John Moore, author of at the very good Brand Autopsy, has a has a neat story about John Mackey and Whole Foods company lore. There’s a corollary to Whole Foods buying Wild Oats that I say about the HR biz: Be nice to people, because you will see them again. HR is a small world.

How to Have Great Meetings

Can you imagine a workplace without meetings? Most people can’t. There are over 11 million meetings a day in the U.S. alone.

Since we started our company over three years ago, we’ve come pretty close to our goal of no meetings. Sure, we talk. We get things done. And every once in a while we even have a “meeting.” We like them to zip along, though. Start fast, end faster, get to work. This week I stumbled across three very interesting articles about how to have effective meetings, each of which start with an admonition about avoiding meetings.

Five Weeeeird Tips for Great Meetings. Alexander, the Chief Happiness Officer, makes me smile every day. He offers some fun tips for effective meetings. One idea: Lose the table and meet standing up.

7 Ways to Avoid Pointless Meetings. Ben at Institgator Blog subtitled this one “Meeting don’t have to suck.”

The 7 Sins of Deadly Meetings. This Fast Company article says, “Meeting are too long. They should do twice as much in half the time.”

Although professionals in American business are said to waste over 30 hours in meetings monthly, there is a better way. Way back when I started working I used to attend group meetings that were quick…and on time. The big boss used to lock the conference room door at the exact time the meeting was to begin. And inevitably someone who was late would tug on the door. They only did that once.

Albert Einstein’s Performance Review

Einstein at Chalkboard

What if Albert Einstein worked for you? How would you write his annual performance review? Albert Einstein’s performance review shows that he wasn’t promotable, didn’t work well with others, and rarely shared credit with others. How do you handle the brilliant, yet different?

I think this will make it into How to Get Rid of Performance Reviews Once and For All.

Peddling and Pedagogy: Learning the Connect 18 Way

Here’s an idea for you if you’re in L&D: Combine exercise and learning. Connect 18 combines peddling and pedagogy to arrive at a pretty good destination. Shiny, happy people…who can speak Spanish.

The Connect18 Group Tour program features specialized educational video courses designed to be viewed while riding a stationary cycle. The educational material is integrated with physical exercise instruction and taught in the context of a cycling tour. Riders tour regions of the world that are relevant to the subject matter being taught. For example, on a Beginner’s Spanish Language tour, cyclists may find themselves cycling through rural Mexican villas while they learn language, culture, and history.

What a great idea. You want to encourage healthy living and exercise. Give your employees a payoff; give them a learning experience at the same time. Somehow exercise is so much better when there’s more to it than just exercising. I like riding my bike, but I like riding with Charlie even more. I like walking Snickers the Wonder Dog at 6 am, but I like it even more when one of my neighbors is up and we walk along talking in the quiet of the morning. And I suspect I’d like to learn a little more Spanish while I did some spinning on a stationary bike. Great idea.

Connect 18 say they will offer classes in “current events, foreign languages, health and wellness, history, literature, art history, music, political science, wine, fashion, traffic school, continuing professional education, professional certification preparation, standardized test preparation, and much more.” This is an idea where “spinning your wheels” is a good thing.

[via Springwise]

HR Conundrum: Can an Employee Be Fired for Visting Adult Sites at Work?

Here’s an HR conundrum for you: An IBM employee is suing for wrongful termination for visiting adult websites while at work. His defense? He’s an internet addict. You can bandy this one around in your next I-thought-I’d-seen-it-all-in-HR session.

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