Speaking of Leadership^® Blog

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe most important person you ever manage is yourself.  Every person’s time talent and energy is finite, so your career advancement involves making choices about your behavior that provide the choices you want. To wit:  Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg offers some advice in a very short article about whether you are

Reading Time: < 1 minutePeter Drucker once remarked that “Demographics is the history that has already happened.”  This is obviously true for society at large, but there are particular implications for the aging  Baby Boomers who own businesses and are starting to look for the exits. Factor in a smaller cohort of Millennials coming of age

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe most successful among us, in our midst, seems to be universally good at managing themselves.  Perhaps the thing they do the best is managing their relationship with their actions; especially starting and staying the course.  This short HBR posting suggests that our greatest struggle “isn’t actually doing the thing, it’s

Reading Time: < 1 minuteGold Rushes occur throughout history.  In 1849, thousands made a mad dash to California when gold was found at Sutter’s Mill.  Most returned home even poorer than they arrived.   In the mid-1800s, the railroad boom made a few rich but destroyed many more.   Remember the late 1990’s and the Internet bubble?  

Reading Time: < 1 minute“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”  wrote the Russian novelist Tolstoy.   The same seems to be  true for “happy” (successful) businesses.  Regardless of the nature of the product or service offered,  the most successful companies today can be considered “software” companies in that

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen is reputed to have characterized the “Great Society” fiscal policy of the 1960s with the wry observation that “ A billion here, a billion there….and after a while it adds up to real money.”   Fifty years later we add a few zeros and we’re talking trillions.  

Reading Time: < 1 minute“Follow your passion”  may be in the top ten entries for career advice.  It may also be the most dangerous. This short article from Forbes, “Why Following Your Passion is Dead”, takes this advice to task as nearly certain to ruin or at least damage lives and careers. The author’s challenge

Reading Time: < 1 minuteTom Peters is one of the great management writers of all time, best known for his groundbreaking, “In Search of Excellence.”  Over a long career, Peters has distilled and shared significant wisdom from observing a wide range companies. In a recent short blog posting, he summarizes nearly four decades of work in six

Reading Time: < 1 minuteWith all the disruption being wrecked on traditional businesses by newcomers with new business models, it’s important to remember that the disruptors are sometimes disrupted before they can displace their competitors. To wit: Movie Pass:   This much touted start up offered a monthly subscription model for movie fans which, as a recent

Reading Time: < 1 minuteFairly or not, life is a first impression business, and as the saying goes we rarely get a second chance to make a first impression. Part of this is how we speak, especially in front of groups and how we rely on  “fillers” or “crutch words” such as “Um, “Ah”, “You know” and many others