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Here are five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about recruiting, Thomas Keller, craigslist, strategic planning (or not), and reality for CEOs.

From the NY Times: When a First Pick Isn't the Best Pick
"The rules of the draft specify that teams can choose according to their won-lost records from the previous year, with the worst teams choosing first. The idea is to give the bad teams the early picks to help them become winners. As it turns out, however, the draft does not play the Robin Hood role particularly well. Indeed, I have written a paper, recently revised, on this subject with Cade Massey, a professor at the Yale School of Management. We found that the teams choosing early in the draft generally don’t, in fact, get the players that provide the most value per dollar. Our paper is titled “The Loser’s Curse” because we discovered that the first pick in the draft is, on average, the least valuable in the entire first round."

Wally's Comment: Interesting article, but note that we're talking about "value per dollar" here. There's not much on fit or the affect on the team.

From DDI: Thomas Keller - Talent Champion
"Shout-out worthy talent management is found in many places as we’ve highlighted in this blog over the last few months. Business situations; athletic teams; the military – those are the usual suspects. I recently read an engaging article about talent management in a different and perhaps unexpected milieu, a story that provided much, um, food for thought: the kitchen in a world class restaurant. This is the story of Thomas Keller, entrepreneur, culinary wizard and Talent Manager extraordinaire. "

Wally's Comment: I've eaten at French Laundry and I've had the pleasure of eating food prepared by chefs who trained under Keller. Both were marvelous experiences. My favorite quote from Keller is: "Success is about ingredients and execution." From this article, I'd say that he extends that philosophy to people.

From Entrepreneur: craigslist: 15 Years Later
"It's ubiquitous, yet quietly understated. And if you live in any relatively large metropolitan area, you've probably used it at least a few times to find a job, an apartment, a couch or even a date. It's been 15 years since Craig Newmark started craigslist as an online arts and events list in San Francisco, and 10 years since he named Jim Buckmaster as CEO, stepping aside to work in customer service at the company. Newmark talks about the company's core values, how they've contributed to his success, and what he's doing to uphold them."

Wally's Comment: There are lots of solid lessons in the story of craigslist. You may want to read this more than once. Do not let spelling errors distract you.

From Fast Company: Strategic Planning is Dead - Long Live Strategy Execution
"The current approach for defining where an organization is going and how it will get there - the ubiquitous Strategic Planning Offsite meeting - can no longer produce the desired result.   Why? In our dynamically changing world, the environment where we execute is not the same one we originally planned for."

Wally's Comment: Norman Wolfe, CEO of Quantum Leaders, wrote this post. You may also want to check out his white papers on "The Living Organization" and "Strategic Planning."

This post picks up two ideas that I think will be crucial in the decades ahead. It's based on a biological model of the organization, not an engineering model. And, like many of us, Wolfe understands that the emphasis in strategy should be on the execution side of things.

Note: Ruthless Focus: How to use key core strategies to grow your business is the title of the book I wrote with Tom Hall. It will be out next month. Watch for it.

From HBS Working Knowledge: Ruthlessly Realistic: How CEOs Must Overcome Denial
"Reviewing a spectacular business failure, we often wonder why the CEO didn't see trouble coming. It was so obvious. Why didn't Digital Equipment Corp. CEO Kenneth Olsen see the PC as a threat to minicomputers? Did Coca-Cola's Roberto Goizueta really think New Coke was a good idea? How long did Henry Ford think he could keep selling black-only Model Ts?"

Wally's Comment: So many things seem so obvious in hindsight. Richard Tedlow concentrates on denial in this piece, but the culprit is often super-filtered reporting as well. The higher your climb up the org chart, the more you have to find ways to develop sources of information that don't involve people who report to you. Then you have to do another hard thing: stay realistic and optimistic at the same time.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.