Insight

Leading during a time of siege
By John O. Burdett
“Ramp-up business development. Release the vitality of those who have a proven track-record in bringing in new business. Drop the drawbridge, raise the portcullis and let your sales talent run free,” says Bedford’s Leadership Advisor, Dr. John Burdett. In this timely piece, Dr. Burdett offers four domains to help leaders guide their teams through challenging times.
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In addition to being Bedford's Leadership Advisor, John O. Burdett is a highly respected international consultant and author, focusing on what can best be described as re-engineering the leadership process. For reviews of his books and ordering information, visit Orextra Inc.
Making the talent management process work
By John O. Burdett
“The cultural impact apart, no organization can afford to put talent management on the backburner,” says Bedford Leadership Advisor, Dr. John Burdett. In this excerpt from his recently released book Myth, Magic, Mindset, Dr. Burdett offers an insightful framework for auditing talent, an imperative for organizations focused on transforming turbulent economic realities into opportunities.
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To lead is to care!
By John O. Burdett
When all is said and done, people want to follow a leader who cares. People want to follow someone who is more than a figurehead, more than an instrument of shareholder value, more than the manifestation of a set of competencies.
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If they don’t land, they won’t stay
By John O. Burdett
What are you going to do to ensure that each and every new or recently promoted leader makes a quick and successful start? To play with the hand you currently have is to marginalize the organization’s ability to attract and retain the very best. Not to act is to pass the competitive edge to the competition.
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21 things you need to know about culture
By John O. Burdett
For today’s leader, culture is everything. Get on top of it, manage it, get it right and possibility beckons. Get it wrong and mediocrity is the best that can be hoped for. Culture is like the oxygen we breathe. We can’t see it, but it’s essential for life. Moreover, because it is always playing in the background, we all-too-easily take it for granted.
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Under Pressure:
Natural Resources Human Capital
By Russ Buckland
The biggest issue facing the Natural Resources market is a shortage of talent in all positions.
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We’re not in Kansas anymore
By Steven Pezim and John O. Burdett
There is huge competitive advantage in helping the client stitch the quilt of tomorrow’s possibility.
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→ Click here to view a list of the forums and the featured speakers.
forum topics include:
Getting Your Story Right – Recruitment Branding
Speaker: Ian Chamandy, Partner, Blueprint Architecture
Talent Scouting
Speakers: Howard Pezim, Managing Director and Russ Buckland, Managing Partner, Bedford Consulting Group
Quickstart
Speaker: Dr. John Burdett, Author & Bedford Leadership Advisor
Lead With Certainty
Speaker: Wahn Yoon, Principal & Partner, Scientific Intelligence.
Leadership Roundtable
Moderator: Rick Wolfe, President, PostStone Corporation
Participants: Anna Cvecich, Vice President, Human Resources, Corporate Canada, GE Canada • Laura Dunne, Senior VP, Human Resources, Canadian Tire • Anna Filipopoulos, Senior VP, People, Cara • Jim Fisher, Vice-Dean, Rotman School of Management • Leo Houle, Chief Talent Officer, BCE • Brian McLaughlin, EVP, Human Resources, Katz Group • Hans Thunem, President and CEO, Life Labs
Bedford in the news
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Moving upward in a downturn
Check out this interesting article from
Harvard Business Review, which was originally publish

ed in 2001 after the dot-com bubble burst. The authour, Darrell Rigby, studied hundreds of companies and found that the recession winner placed counterintuitive bets to outperform slumping competitors. Read the article
here.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Managing employees in a downturn
This article in the November issue of
BusinessWeek tackles a number of prescient issues surrounding talent management in an economic downturn "... smart leaders see downturns as having plenty of upside, too. Talent is cheaper." Read the whole article
here.
Monday, October 27, 2008
How to succeed during the hurricane
Amid all the ubiquitous doom and gloom articles, this particular article stood out in today’s
Globe & Mail. The authors, business professors Daniel Muzyka and Lawrence Weiss stress that “Downturns provide exceptional opportunities to acquire key talent, important assets, expand markets, and acquire businesses.” Read the whole article
here.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Evaluating the CEO
In this month’s Harvard Business Review, the former CEO of Arrow Electronics and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, Stephen Kaufman, explores why CEO evaluation must extend beyond “Hitting the numbers” and why “All the Incentives in the world won’t transform CEO’s into better decision makers.” Read the executive summary of the article
here.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Hit the ground running
“If you don’t make an impact right out of the gate, they’re going to wonder why they hired you.” Says Bedford Managing Director, Howard Pezim, in this piece from the
Globe and Mail that investigates the problems encountered by newly hired executives. Also featured are a set of useful Ground Rules from John Burdett and Bedford’s QuickStart programme.
Read more (subscription required).
Monday, September 08, 2008
Don't neglect employees in a down economy
This month’s
Advertising Age includes a particularly timely article by Rob O'Keefe, in which he says: “including a statement in your company’s annual report proclaiming ‘our people are our greatest resource’ can't be the culmination of your organization’s efforts.”
Read more.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Talent shortage hitting bottom line
The
Financial Post reports on Bedford’s 2008 Business Survey which shows that 54% of business leaders believe that the talent shortage is affecting their firms’ financial performance.
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Only a quarter of Canadian firms have strong recruitment program
The
Ottawa Business Journal highlights some of the key findings from Bedford’s 2008 Business Survey.
Read more.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Canadian businesses want action to stop talent drain to foreign countries
The
Canadian Press reports on Bedford’s 2008 Business Survey which shows that 70% of executives are already experiencing a talent shortage.
Read more.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
World’s most influential headhunters—Steven Pezim
Steven Pezim, Managing Director of the Bedford Group, is chosen as one of the World’s Most Influential Headhunters in the current issue of
BusinessWeek.
Read more.
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