Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Scott Berkun, whose work I generally like a lot, recently wrote a piece titled Why You Should Be a Team of One. It is a rare miss – a dud, and advice frankly which should be ignored.
Scott has written three books: all are quite good. His most recent, Confessions of a Public Speaker, is particularly good, helpful for someone like me who has 20+ years working with large group facilitation and design when I’m not doing my regular work of coaching execs and team.… Read the rest
Things are bubbling in the technology start-up world: not 1998 frothy, but clearly bubbling nonetheless.
And even while there is sobering reality – for example Tom Abate’s piece yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle Why Silicon Valley Faces Fresh Threats – there are telltale signals that things may be changing.
Signs of a cautious optimism can be found from the uptick in the amount of venture capital investment – noted courtesy Chubby Brain here in the highest number of deals occurring in the US in Q4 2009 at US$5.5 B with an aggregate of US$20B for the year – to articles such as Dharmesh Shah’s in OnStartups.com… Read the rest
Assumptions form the basis of almost everything we do; for example, we assume that the sun will rise (somewhere) from the east every day, roads can get icy for driving when it gets cold and wet, and no matter how you plan it, someone will call on the phone or ring the doorbell if you hop into the shower during the middle of the day.… Read the rest
There is a secret to your success.
It’s on page 9 of the Sunday, February 9, 2010 print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle’s article about American professional football player Jerry Rice.
It’s the same secret that Malcolm Gladwell covered in Outliers, when he reported on the work of K. Anders Ericsson.
It’s the same secret that the research that Stanford professor Carol Dweck uncovered and reported on in her book MindSet in which she identifies two types of approaches: a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset.”… Read the rest
The adage “You have only one chance to make a first impression” has a sibling: “You have only one chance to make a decent good-bye.”
I thought of both when I saw Sun Microsystem CEO Jonathan Schwartz’ farewell note as he terminated his employment with the completion of Sun’s acquisition by Oracle [Disclosure: Jonathan and I are nodding acquaintances in our Dolores Park neighborhood of San Francisco].… Read the rest
John Baldoni recently blogged on the best way to handle your critics, using President Obama’s recent session with Republican Congress members as an example. Baldoni’s post at the Harvard Business Review – How to Face Your Critics – suggests the following steps:
Beyond facing your critics, a key foundational pillar for you to be a good manager and an even better leader is your ability to give and get great feedback.… Read the rest