Category: Organizational Development

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[Trick or Treat] The Trouble with Incentives

As a senior at Tigard High School, the Prom Queen was selected by a canned food competition between the three high school classes. The goal was to incent students to both show school spirit and bring in canned foods for people who were less fortunate and needed the food to eat to live.

Both competitive and adventuresome sorts, my class’ winning solution was to tin-cup class members for cash, and then ditch school to go buy canned foods at discount retailers that sold marred (but perfectly eatable) canned goods at a discount.… Read the rest

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How to Think about Building Out A Start-Up

There is a quote someplace about “don’t sweat the details.”

When it comes to company building, though, sweating the details is what separates those that thrive – and survive– from start-up road kill. It’s exactly doing those (thoughtful) details that break or make a new company, not only the big picture stuff that might have sparked the launch.

That point was driven home working with a client this past week: successful over their first few years of existence the firm is at a point where they’re past start-up “survival mode” and focused on the things that will sustain them for years to come.… Read the rest

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[U.S. Independence Day] What Made the Founders So Special?

It’s easy in troubled times – the Great Depression and World War II in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the late 1960’s and today’s times all come to mind – to wax nostalgic for the "good old days" and the presumed leadership that guided a nation’s people through those times.

Great leadership, whether it’s community or corporate, are leaders who effectively take a community or company from Point A to Point B: Moses, for example, or A.… Read the rest

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[New Rules] Why Your Next Job is (Also) a Temporary Job

It might be nice if you found a job that lasted you for the rest of your life. It’s unlikely to happen –

even if you’re in a profession like a teacher of doctor – and even less likely for anyone who holds what we think of as a “regular” job.

The reality, as career guru Richard Nelson Bolles has said, “is that every job has turned into a temp job — whether people are conscious of that or not.… Read the rest