Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
There are three well-known West Coast asset management firms (financial services speak for mutual funds, venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, or fund of funds firms) – none of them clients – where the firm’s leadership team members barely tolerate each other.
They talk when they must. Otherwise they minimize their working relationships as much as possible.
The firms make money. … Read the rest
Our 8 1/2 year old son Traylor seems finally settled on a transitional object.
The Peanuts’ cartoon character Linus has his omnipresent blanket; my little big guy has Flatopup.
Flatopup took hold after a number of other alternatives were considered and then discarded. When Traylor was in preschool my spouse and I were convinced that his friend Emma – another child of a non traditional (single mom) and adoptive family – was his transitional object, the enduring item in his preschool life that enabled him to go through any number of other changes with the sense of a constant at this side.… Read the rest
Four data points hit my brain this week. All intersected at the same point.
Choose you!
Point 1: Seth Godin started the theme with a blog post titled Reject the tyranny of being picked; pick yourself.
His point? Don’t succumb to the fantasy that gatekeepers (his word) like book publishers, record producers, and HR recruiters will choose you. … Read the rest
Malcolm Gladwell had Sandy Nininger. I have March Madness. The results are the same.
Mere talent is taking a beating.
Gladwell’s writings – built in part on the work of people like Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth – have shown that raw talent – smarts as we like to say in the business world – is overrated.
Gladwell demonstrated in The Talent Myth that hiring by collegiate pedigree – shorthand for smart – gave us the Enron fiasco (with McKinsey & Co’s significant backing).… Read the rest
The last big tech boom – eleven years ago – had collars and handcuffs wrapped around founders and early hires.
Apart from the joy, challenge and excitement in creating something from nothing (btw – something not to be ignored or underestimated) the big financial upside was in stock. Stock which in many cases couldn’t be cashed out until the startup went public or got bought.… Read the rest
There are lots of ways to make a good first impression.
Here are some ways – all which happened recently – to make make a bad first, second, and continuing impression.