Over at the Sun Microsystems blog I published an interview about the art of change. It features Ariane de Bonvoisin, the founder and CEO of The First Thirty Days, Inc. She recently published a book called The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More). Learn about the crucial first [...]
Any article that starts off by advising you to tell potential employees that working at your company is a stepping stone to great jobs in other companies is okay by me. Penelope Trunk does this in "Memo to Human Resources: New Ways to Get Great Candidates." Her recommendations include: Tell people where they'll go next. [...]
Choose your weapon: Power 1.0 = muscle and weapons Power 2.0 = money, market share, or brain power Given these choices, most people and companies choose both. However, both Power 1.0 and 2.0 reflect Machievelli's thinking that it's better to be feared than loved. Dacher Keltner, professor at U.C. Berkeley, has defined what I would [...]
All hail Carleen Hawn because she has written a fabulously funny analysis of the management style of (Fake) Steve Jobs. It’s called the “Ten Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs” Never let people know where they stand. You don’t have to hire the best people. Only promote stupid people. Never tell people what is expected of [...]
“Snooze or Lose” is an article that every parent should read because kids need their sleep or their cognitive ability may get set back for years. Here’s the key sentence: “A few scientists theorize that sleep problems during formative years can cause permanent changes in a child’s brain structure: damage that one can’t sleep off [...]
My buddy Ray Schraff from Hyland Software pointed me to this site containing a comprehensive list of management theories. It is an “MBA in a page,” and I mean that in a pejorative way. Here are some examples from the page: GE/McKinsey matrix, Kaizen philosophy, Capital Asset Pricing Model, Business Process Reengineering, and Scenario Planning. [...]
I liked Penelope Trunk's interview so much that I asked her for more material. Here's her list of the nine biggest workplace myths: You’ll be happier if you have a job you like. The correlation between your happiness and your job is overrated. The most important factors, by far, are your optimism levels and your [...]
According to a story in Reuters, Salary.com released a study that shows that a stay-at-home mom should earn $138,095/year for what she does. Salary.com provides this online tool so that people can calculate how much a particular mom’s work is worth. I hope lots of moms forward this information...
Seth Godin provided me with a copy of his new book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick), and I think it will definitely get people to think about life. To give you a taste of what’s in the book, here’s an interview with Seth about the [...]
Since blogging about Bob Sutton’s notorious book, The No Asshole Rule, I have received a constant flow of emails from readers sharing their own tales of lecherous bosses and indignities suffered. Mean-spirited morons are still running much of the workplace, and it’s time to take a stand. Most nastiness is directed by superiors to subordinates; [...]
This is a follow-up to the posting of March 14th based on a new book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It is a video of Professor Carol Dweck explaining fixed and growth mindsets. Also, this diagram explains the differences between the two mindsets. It’s great—but that’s not surprising because Nigel Holmes created it. [...]
I recently learned about Science Daily. It is a treasure chest of interesting studies that has implications on business practices. I’ve collected so much material from it that this is going to be “Science Daily Week” in my blog. For example, have you ever wondered whether giving employees a pay-for-performance bonus or a merit raise [...]
My Stanford psychology professor, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, and Zeno Franco, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology wrote a terrific article called “The Banality of Heroism.” Dr. Zimbardo ran the (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment, so he knows how circumstances can make good people do bad things. This article is different—it’s [...]
The guys at iInnovate posted a lovely interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Among the topics they covered were: Anti-trust (with a beautiful deke to create “time and space” as we say in hockey) Innovation Competitive advantages Motivation of entrepreneurs Maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit Traditional and non-traditional organization design What Microsoft and Yahoo does [...]
Bob Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, continues to, well, kick butt. It’s gaining notoriety across the globe and, more importantly, it’s usually in the top twenty sellers of Amazon. Here are some interesting factoids about the introduction of the book. 57,774 people have taken the [...]
If you manage any people or if you are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read The Effort Effect. This is an article about Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck. It examines her thirty-year study of why some some people excel and others don’t. (Hint: the answer is not “God-given [...]
This is a picture of my copy of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. It has broken my record for the “book with most stickies.” My system is that the stickies on the top edge are ideas for my next book, and the ones on the side are ideas for this blog. As [...]
The Nancy Ortberg sermon called “Jesus & Your Job” is now back online. Watch it and reap.
I heard a sermon this morning called “Jesus & Your Job” by Nancy Ortberg of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. This is a wonderful example of a powerful message delivered in a powerful way. It contains an excellent description of what makes good leaders and how to derive the maximum value from one’s work. I doubt [...]
Michael Raynor has a doctorate of business administration from Harvard and works for a big-name consulting firm so I had to overcome several deep-seated prejudices to read his new book The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What To Do About It). He’s from Canada, and I believe that I am [...]