Author: Phil Holberton

Reading Time: < 1 minute In the late 1950s, 78% of Americans trusted their government. To find out what the number is today, check out Peggy Noonan’s recent WSJ article “We Must Improve Our Trust” for some insights into how we got to the current state of mistrust and what we might do about it. Ms Noonan

Reading Time: < 1 minute Good habits are hard to acquire and bad habits are hard to break…and our dependence on smart phones doesn’t seem to helping in getting rid of the bad ones…until now. This short HBR article provides some great insights into habits good and bad, and offers some interesting technology options for dealing

Reading Time: < 1 minute Meet 21 year old Zander Futernick who may be about to teach the airline industry how to run, well, an airline. Existing businesses are often reinvented by finding an unserved market and/or creating a different business model for an old product.   This short article from Forbes relates how Mr. Futernick is

Reading Time: < 1 minute The introduction of the telegraph in the 1830s made news available instantaneously. Until its invention, news could only travel as fast as a horseman or ship could carry it. Were the Declaration of Independence to signed today, the announcement would be shared everywhere at once (assuming of course it hadn’t

Reading Time: < 1 minute We all have outgoing voicemail messages but have you ever wondered if these messages are inviting people to not call you again. Nancy Friedman’s has some advice about his matter. Known internationally as “The Telephone Doctor,”  Ms. Friedman has trained thousands of salespeople and customer service reps how not to shoot themselves in the

Reading Time: < 1 minute If you like TED Talks, check out financier Michael Milken’s Annual conference website. Top notch thought leaders in a wide variety of fields, not just business, are featured in compelling video recordings of this year’s Milken Conference. There are dozens to choose from and you can search by topic and by

Reading Time: < 1 minute Tomes have been written about leadership, but maybe pictures may help provide some additional understanding and insight regarding the most important trait of every CEO:  Leadership Check out these compelling graphics regarding the essentials of leadership. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these eight counterintuitive graphics will give you much to

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s one thing for a business or industry to suffer a significant downturn.  It’s quite another for an industry icon to disappear entirely. To wit: the Toys ‘R’ Us shutdown, liquidation and its soon to be total disappearance from the retail scene.  What can we learn from the demise of  Toys

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s hard to imagine a sector that’s been disrupted more than retail. So disrupted in fact that one retail observer has concluded that “great is no longer good enough.” Wharton School marketing professor Barbara Kahn explains her comment in this podcast and review of her book “The Shopping Revolution.”

Reading Time: < 1 minute If pressed, most C-Level executives would admit that they never fired anyone too soon. Regardless of fault, the company, the manager and the problem employee would almost always have all been better off if the parting had happened sooner. SalesLeadership, Inc. President Colleen Stanley suggests that what makes good sales managers effective