Grey Crimson

Frank Owens, Ltd. was founded in 1985 as a retained executive search firm, specializing in providing key personnel to the home building industry. The company's reputation as a pre-eminent search firm has resulted in expansion into the building products sector. Frank Owens, Ltd. is proud to contribute to both of these integrated sectors and looks forward to further growth in the near future.

By forging relationships early in his career, Frank was able to parlay those relationships into very rewarding friendships throughout the careers of many executives within the Home Building Industry. Today, those relationships continue to strengthen and perpetuate. Serving the leaders responsible for managing growth and risk of the homebuilding industry is at the core of Frank's business.

Frank is proud and privileged to continue to serve many of the same clients that started with him 20 years ago, who credit Frank Owens, Ltd. for placing strong, smart and loyal managers that have helped grow their business.

Specialties

Homebuilding Industry Recruiter, Home Building Permit Trends, Statistical, Cultural Fit

Website

www.frankowensltd.com

Industry

Real Estate

Type

Privately Held

Company Size

Myself Only

Founded

1985

Human Capital Alliance senior advisor K I Woo looks at leadership.

A recent Stanford University study concluded that publicly-perceived leadership-qualities such as authority, power and emotional intelligence don’t actually correlate with what companies require from their leaders.

Sarah Cliffe’s Harvard Business Review’s article “Leadership Qualities vs. Competence” based on the study said competence and deep knowledge of what needs to be done is a more important success factor.

The paper also looks at when power differences contribute to team success and when they damage it.

Power poses

Many of today’s leaders use power poses that help them appear to be someone of authority.

The poses often based on extensive research have great value, but they may at the same time lead us to ignore and cast-aside the importance of selecting competent individuals as leaders.

The researchers said a Cornell University study showed that in many cases, the least competent but most overconfident people often ended up in charge.

What does competence mean?

Competence is described by the researchers as deep knowledge of the technical work being done.

With this deep knowledge, competent leaders are more enable to help their teams seek out new ideas and better solutions.

Three team-types studied

In the Stanford study, three different team types were asked to search collaboratively for the best solution to a complex problem.

The first group was led by leaders who knew most about the task. In this case influence was aligned with competence and these groups performed best.

A second group of teams shared power and were relatively non-hierarchical. This group did not perform as well as the first, but they did outperform the third group that included hierarchical teams with randomly chosen leaders.

“We replicated these findings in the field, by the way. We studied 49 teams at a publicly held Dutch company; the teams were auditing finances in search of tax evasion and fraud. If the team leader didn’t have a deep, technical understanding of tax fraud, he or she led the team badly astray.”

Study takeaways

Companies and organizations must pay closer attention to how they we choose leaders.

In particular, they must not be overly influenced by political connections or persuasiveness or the appearance of authority.

“Some of those things can be useful, but competence comes first. It’s essential to use objective measures of performance in hiring and promotion.”

Secondly, we must be careful of formal hierarchy’s dangers.

Important decisions, the researchers said require the best possible information. Leaders must be able to value the expertise of other team members and share power when they’re not best-suited to make a decision.

Thirdly, it’s critically important to know where knowledge in the company currently resides. Many fast-growing companies often lose track and are unable to appropriately address the issue.

“Every couple of months, a team should take stock of what challenges are most pressing, and who has deep knowledge that’s relevant to those challenges.

Consultants

Consulting companies often face the same leadership dilemma when selecting project leaders.

Cliffe said in many consulting engagements, the person who brought in the client isn’t necessarily the most knowledgeable about the work to be done,

“Leadership roles are better assigned once you understand who knows what, and they may need to shift in the course of the project as new issues arise.”

When do self-managed teams, or “holocracies,” work best?

The researchers indicated that self-managed teams or “holocracies” work best if power can’t be aligned with the right set of competencies.

In those situations, an egalitarian team may be a good idea, they said.

Why battle ridiculously heavy traffic and crowded trains and elbow your way past hordes of annoying people who can’t stop blocking the escalators when you can buy the exact same things on the internet or in heartland malls?

Once upon a time, shopping in heartland malls meant wearing This Fashion clothes or being limited to the book selection at Popular.

Nowadays, new heartland malls are much more happening. There are stores like Kate Spade Saturday, Calvin Klein Jeans and Armani Exchange at Westgate, while Nex at Serangoon has a rooftop garden with, get this, a dog park, which we have to admit is freaking cool.

Even if you live in Bukit Batok or Yishun, where the neighbourhood malls still suck, you can just buy stuff online. Online shopping is often cheaper than buying stuff in malls since you don’t need to subsidise the high cost of rent, plus you can buy from retailers without Singapore outlets like Target.

You know what’s better than Pedestrian Night on Orchard Road? Not having to deal with not just cars but also other people.

Yvette, a 38-year-old lawyer, concurs. “I buy a large fraction of my things online now, from vitamin supplements to books for my kids. It’s so much more convenient as I don’t need to waste my time travelling to shopping malls. I can even get the merchants to deliver my purchases to my office.”

Don’t even get us started about the increase in parking fares. You’d be hardpressed to find a mall in the main Orchard Road area with a per-entry fee after 6pm. Instead, they’ve been replaced with time-based per entry rates. Thankfully there are still some safe havens for relatively affordable parking, which we’ve compiled here.

Dr. Richard Isaacs joined Kaiser Permanente in 1995 and have Advanced Certification in Head and Neck Oncologic Surgery. His specialties include: orbital, nasal, and maxillofacial surgery, as well as thyroid and parathyroid surgery. Dr. Isaacs function as a regional resource for the management of advanced tumors of the head and neck and provide the otolaryngologic approach for tumors at the skull base. Additionally, he is trained in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive surgery and perform rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty, otoplasty, and rhytidectomy. He have an interest in post-tumor facial reconstruction and facial reanimation surgery. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

7300 Wyndham Dr

Sacramento, CA 95823

CREDENTIALS:

* 24 years in practice

* Wayne State University School Of Medicine (MD, 1988)