A Graduation Gift…
Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s commencement time and whether your child is in high school, off to college, headed to a summer internship, or off to conquer the world, here is collection of my favorite commencement speaker advice and a few other observations that you may wish to share with the young people in
Your Eight Bad Habits
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe most important person we ever manage is ourselves. To the extent that “habits are the magistrates of our lives,” taking a hard look at what gets in our way of adopting good ones and shedding bad ones seems a good prescription. This article from Forbes enumerates Eight Habits that
Surfer Dude Sales Advice
Reading Time: < 1 minuteGreat advice can come from unexpected quarters if we are ready for it. To wit: check out this short story about how a father’s advice created a great salesman and how we often make our jobs harder than they need to be. Consider some surfer dude sales advice before you
Got Peers?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIf you’re reading this and have not availed yourself of membership in Vistage or other C-Level Peer Group, take a few minutes for an overview of peer power by a man who literally wrote the book on the subject. Leo Bottary, author of “The Power of Peers” was recently interviewed
I, Pencil
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThose who are concerned that China’s economy will surpass ours should consider the following “required reading.” China just announced to great fanfare that after years of effort and millions in investment, it has managed to produce… a ballpoint pen! (This was accomplished in the US about 80 years ago). Before
Some Obvious Advice and “The Dark Playground”
Reading Time: < 1 minuteRemember the old adage of “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time!” But how do you get those massive projects started? Check out this obvious, but worthwhile advice in this one-page article from Inc Magazine. …and if today isn’t the day to stop procrastinating, soothe
Linking Business Performance to KPIs – Professionally and Personally
Reading Time: 2 minutesEvery business leader needs to organize a set of KPIs. These KPIs have two purposes: 1) track the progress of business, and 2) motivate the organization to s t r e t c h, and achieve its maximum performance. Where Do You Start? Begin with a few KPIs; five is
The Core of Leadership – Trust
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTrust is the glue that holds our leadership together. In a world of science and big data, we’d like to be able to reduce “trust” to an equation; but according to master marketer Seth Godin, that level of objectivity is not to be expected. Godin suggests that “trust” comes from some
HAPPINESS: The Data Are In!
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow will 2016 be different from the years before it for you? Would you settle for being happy as well as being productive and effective? If so, this 12 minute TED Talk summarizes 70 years of research on what made people happy whether rich or poor. A group of young
Who Would Ever had Thought: An MBA from Netflix
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIf you don’t have the time or money for that MBA, there are any number of online courses (Coursera) you can take. Added to these course offerings are a dozen Netflix documentaries about the people that have built organizations and how they created and managed these companies…..and themselves. Check out