Time after time I see promising young athletes reach the professional teams, and they don’t make it. Time and time again I see someone do well in the good times, but then allow one small setback to avalanche into a total personal, business and financial collapse. Other times someone struggles through the youth ranks, shows … Read more
Who are your “Passive Mentors”? Mentors make a big difference in my life. There are 2 types of mentor: Active and Passive mentors. Active mentors are those that you meet in person, interact with and get to know. Passive mentors are those that you learn from without them knowing. Book authors are one of the … Read more
10 things that employees surveyed last year by the Great Place to Work organisation said contributed to poor management: Lack of Recognition and Appreciation – employees who believe that managers do not really appreciate the work, energy and effort put in during their days and sometimes evenings Poor Communication – employees want to find out … Read more
Let Go of Things Others Can Do – Avoid busy-ness as a sign of productivity Encourage Initiative – Allow falling-forward-failure, Destroy comfort-zone; The Institutional Yes Direction and Discipline – Ensure people have goals and know how they are doing Excruciating Accountability – hold themselves and others to clear process goals (under own control) Focus – Don’t dilute energy; … Read more
My last post was on Meaningful Contribution. I talked about three questions about the work you are doing: does it serve others? do you do it well? and do you love doing it? The 4 Paths in our Working Life Taking two of those questions: does it serve others? and do you love doing it? … Read more
In the last issue of IESE Insight magazine, Carlos Ghosn offered three key lessons he has learned during his career. First, he said, “Every problem has a solution,” but business leaders have to be prepared to pay the personal or collective price that will come with a given solution. Second, things have to get worse … Read more
Failure is Carelessness, Success is Consistency This Sunday I was at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin to watch the key Six Nations Rugby game between Ireland and England. England won. The Irish guy sitting next to me says: “We were by far the better team.” I said “The score doesn’t show that. We were more … Read more
What are the 3 words that managers find hardest to say? They are possibly the 3 words that parents find hardest to say to children. They are 3 words that teachers very rarely say to their students. They are not “You’re the Best”. They are not “I love you”. What might they be? The 3 hardest … Read more
The Words, the Meaning, the Effect As we communicate, there are 3 separate processes at play: what we say, what we mean when we say it, and what we accomplish by saying it A rhetorician would call these 3 separate processes: 1) locution, 2) illocution, and 3) perlocution. In my courses we use the shorthand “Point X” to … Read more
“We have study hall at the beginning of our meetings.” says Jeff Bezos. Staff meetings at Amazon begin with 30 minutes of silent reading. Powerpoint is easy for presenter, hard for audience “The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation. Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a powerpoint … Read more