Frederick Lamster

It's intriguing to read articles that focus on the current challenges of retail businesses and the “imminent death” of the industry. The same is true of articles that focus on the challenges around developing talent pipelines and finding the retail talent of the future. It's particularly interesting to read articles with lengthy citations from senior…

Over the past two years, we've focused our writing on the myriad of challenges and evolving realities facing the “modern workplace” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's clear that no one anticipated not only the duration of the pandemic, but also the effects it would have on both the physical workplace environment itself, as well…

Over the last two years, our articles have primarily addressed the challenges that face the current and future workplace. That being said, it's the pandemic that has most challenged our views and “rules” on the set-up of the workplace and established routines. While things were changing prior to the pandemic, the pace of change is…

We begin 2021 somewhat in the same manner we ended 2020, but with a hopefully considerable, and probably cautious, level of hope that somehow the business environment will begin to phase back to an understandable new normal in the months to come. Our recent past articles have been mostly discussions on the challenges the pandemic…

How many times have we been advised to find the “right cultural fit” when involved in a hiring process, regardless of industry? Historically this is usually the place a hiring manager begins when embarking upon a hiring process. Often organizations default to evaluating talent in terms of similarities in background, experience, interests, etc. However, research…

We noticed in the January/February 2019 Harvard Business Review there was a short article about “the limits of empathy.” Since we've been writing extensively over the last year about the importance of self-awareness and empathy, this caught our attention. The gist of the “argument” is that the idea of taking someone else’s perspective doesn’t necessarily…

We've written in the past about relationships between baby boomers and millennials and how they can productively co-exist or, better yet, jointly thrive in the workplace. Building on this premise, in this article we offer some thoughts about how and why baby boomers increasingly reinvent themselves later in life, as well as the challenges that…

We offer less data and more (hopefully) practical common sense and experiential arguments as to what constitutes effective leadership.

When we asked friends and colleagues what's the most important skill for consistent and continued success in business, they gave a multiplicity of answers including leadership and management skills, brains, and creativity. However the leading response from this group was curiosity. Many defined curiosity as the impulse to seek new information and experiences, the desire…

Effective leaders articulate a vision, create an environment in which people can succeed, hire the best talent for the tasks at hand, give them support and tools, instill their importance as part of the organization, and simply GET OUT OF THE WAY.