Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
You don’t have look very far in the San Francisco Bay area to run into someone who has or has had an employment acquisition / buy-out arrangement.
Dentists, CPAs, other business owners of one stripe or another frequently have as part of the sale of their business a provision to work (“earn out period” – samples here) for some defined period of time with the people to whom they’ve sold their practice.… Read the rest
Colin Neenan noted that “Life just seems so full of connections.”
It’s those connections, and the behaviors that impact that, that inform my work. In my consulting practice coaching executives and teams, as well as career coaching, I’m focused on those actions and behaviors rather than the feelings and emotions behind them. That “behaviors first” approach in business enables individual and team coaching clients to achieve quicker, more durable and quantifiable results..… Read the rest
In the old days – circa 1980 or so – companies depended on managing their operations by policies and procedures. Senior managers would issue an updated process and procedure, and people would follow the new marching orders. It seemed to work well – except when times changed and it didn’t.
Swiss banking giant UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland), in a back-to-the future-moment, has just issued an extensive set of dress guidelines for its client-facing employees (“wear flesh colored underwear“) that makes it feel like the 1980’s all over. … Read the rest
Woody Allen’s famous line – “80% of success is showing up” – has a correlate from Edward Tufte; “Show up early, something good is bound to happen.”
While showing up early for a cocktail party may not be the best advice, taking both pieces of advice to heart (and into action) from Allen and Tufte about any other business, presentation, or community event/activity gives you a leg up on any number of things.… Read the rest
There are few things that are more important than first impressions (that tagline: “You only have one chance to make a great first impression“), the time in-between, and leaving that lasting impression by how you say goodbye.
People can forget at times a lot of bumpiness in that in-between period if the bookend hello and goodbyes are done well.
Seth Godin recently blogged that “unreasonable is the new reasonable” – the only person or business that succeeds are those that offer qualities or service that no one can ever approach.
I quibble with Godin’s assessment (I believe it’s more hype that actual performance). I don’t quibble with his take to the appearance of those qualities.… Read the rest