Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
Bud Tunt, one smart exec with whom I worked at Fortune 15 McKesson, told me that the savviest thing you could do in business was to take away all the excuses.
Bud was on so something.
There are three camps; people who care and support you or your ideas, people who care and have criticism about you or your ideas, and people who don’t care or support you and sit on their hands.… Read the rest
It may simply be that time of year but I’m being “soft vetted” for board of director / board of trustee seats.
And whether the board seat is for an organization that is for-profit or for non-profit, there are things some things that anyone – you, me, or anybody else – should do.
Soft vetting is remeniscient of grade school (“If you did have a crush on someone in class who would it be?… Read the rest
You work hard, try to do the right thing, and frequently put the interests of others ahead of your own. You’re a good guy. But does that mean you’ll be a success?
“Nice guys finish last” is an adage we all know, and it suggests that not only do nice people do poorly in the competitive world of things sports and corporations, but apparently can even finish badly in the dating game.… Read the rest
Almost every exec and manager hires people – even in the flat organizations common today. Yet few do it well, and many put it down low on their list of favorite things to do. This post is the last of series of four on how you can – with some simple, common sense practices – hire well, get a great return from your hiring activities, and frankly enjoy a reputation for hiring brilliantly.… Read the rest
Business titles are interesting things. The right title in the right situation can be extraordinarily helpful: the wrong title in the wrong setting makes uphill sledding suddenly look easy.
What is frequently complicating is that what a title means can be interpreted broadly, and how it impacts you can do the same. I have worked with a number of people who would gladly (well, maybe not gladly, but they’d do it) trade titles for a piece of compensation because the title meant more for them then cold cash.… Read the rest
We are in one of those periods of great transformational change. Things that we’ve taken for granted, such as hard copy publishing (newspapers, magazines, books, records/CDs) – as well any number the “normal” ways things get done in different sectors and businesses – are morphing in front of our eyes.
The enduring challenge for continuing organizations, even educational institutions like colleges and universities, is to anticipate transformational changes before they occur: gain advantage on any favorable aspects of the change they can as well as figure out how to mitigate the negatives so they don’t sink you.… Read the rest