Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
If you live in a certain City by the bay, sooner or later little surprises you.
Annoy you? Yes. Delight you? Often. Alarm, disappoint, thrill, and endear? Always.
It’s those differences that make the place so special. Take away those difference and ultimately it leads to one destination; the land of boring, common, even mediocre.
Some workplaces are just like that City.… Read the rest
Your boss has been hired to take another job and will be leaving the company. Or perhaps your boss has been whacked and that’s the reason the job is now vacant.
Either way that box in the organization chart that used have a name is empty.
Do you raise your hand and volunteer to take the job on an interim basis, or do you wait to see if you get tapped – and decide then if you want “interim” next to your name?… Read the rest
There are clients you love, clients you hate, clients you wish you had, and clients you wish you’d lose.
But are there clients you should fire?
That’s the crux of the news that Facebook axed a contract yoga teacher because she had the temerity to “give a woman using a cell phone in the front row in the middle of class a disapproving look.… Read the rest
Indian grandmothers, perhaps the same ones that shared my Cathay Pacific red-eye from Hong Kong earlier that day, dotted the crowd helping out with their grandkids.
Rachel Herbert, successful entrepreneur and owner of three hit restaurants (all three parks + dogs with Dolores Park Cafe, Duboce Park Cafe, and Precita Park Cafe) was doing her part collecting donations as a volunteer, working the crowd of several thousand before showtime hit.… Read the rest
You’ve been promoted to a job on an interim basis and perhaps promised a strong shot at that role on a permanent basis.
Your company has just hired a search firm to handle the “permanent” placement.
Are you at risk?
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
That’s the situation that Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinshohn finds himself in with the news reported by Kara Swisher that blue chip executive search firm Spencer Stuart has been hired by the board to handle the firm’s CEO search.… Read the rest
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