Chief Executive magazine recently summarized some reasons why Chief Executives make mistakes. Some of these are well-known to most of us ... predetermining the outcome before a thorough deliberation, praying for synergies when they don't exist, failing to take account of the changing landscape.You need to solicit honest input, submerge…
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, is an insightful guy who recently performed some studies regarding cheating. (You'll need to scroll down to the 3rd article.) What he found suggests that some predisposition toward cheating may come from events that occur just prior the incident. He discusses, for example, one…
Patrick Lencioni has got it right in his guest column in Business Week recently: There's no substitute for taking an active interest in the lives of your employees. The MBWO - "managment by walking around" theory has always been popular in these pages as a simple, no-cost tool to stay…
I mentioned here before about the regular Sunday NY Times feature called the Corner Office, which summarizes conversations with various CEO’s about leadership, lessons learned, interviewing techniques, etc.
Here are 4 key lessons.
Sunday’s column interviewed Lawrence Kellner, CEO of Continental Airlines, who reaffirmed several points emphasized on this blog.
First, it IS critical that you have the right people on the bus and in the right seats. Leaders are dependent upon many others to fulfill their responsibilities, so if you haven’t focused on strengthening your leadership team to the maximum extent possible, you’re simply extending your INability to get things done.
Kellner also emphasizes how critical it is to provide regular, unbiased feedback to your people all along the way. (more…)
The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.
This page provides the Print-Friendly Version of the article, as published.
Any related materials or articles referenced in the column, or otherwise applicable, will also be referenced below:
The electronic version of the article, as published, may be found here.
**********************************************************************************
Article published -September 14, 2009
“Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess.”
– Jean-Jaques Rosseau
You’ll recall that last time, we catalogued the perils of pride and envy in the pursuit of business success, but alas, we’ve barely dented the list of Seven Deadly Sins.
During this economic tumult, we’ve seen excesses like never before in our lifetimes … excessive credit card and mortgage debt, inflated housing prices, financial malfeasance, Ponzi schemes, egregious compensation plans and much more. It’s no surprise, then, that three of these seven misdeeds are offenses of excess in various incarnations.
Gluttony appears on the list and is defined as the “inordinate desire to consume more than you require,” which originated with concerns for wasting food in the midst of poverty. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval religious thinker, even identified six ways to commit gluttony, including consuming too much, too soon, too eagerly or too expressively – maybe the perfect expression of the runaway consumer spending that brought our economy to its knees.
“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche,” famously translated as “Let them eat cake,” is arguably attributed to Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution, hailing the ignominious end to another age of excess. (more…)
There's no better time to re-examine our assumptions about what works and what doesn't. How many times have we seen the power of unconventional thinking (quit using the tired "out of the box" thinking metaphor) ... and how frequently have our traditional beliefs been skewered as a result?Here's a story…
Gretchen Morgenson, a NY Times columnist, reports that shareholders are speaking out more than ever as they seek to hold directors accountable. It's a welcome trend, as we know that too many directors are really just cronies of the owners and don't provide the unbiased, independent feedback that's expected of…
Thomas Friedman’s Op-Ed in the Sunday NY Times entitled Real Men Tax Gas, makes sense in many ways, mostly in arguing that we have not proven to be very “tough” in making the difficult decisions. At the same time, Friedman presupposes that a gas tax would provide significant funding that the “government” could then deploy to reduce the deficit and fund health care. (more…)
Whenever I find an article about innovative or alternative financing, it's worth sharing. Creative financing has never been more needed as businesses seek to preserve and protect their franchise. While these alternatives may not be applicable to your business, use this information to jumpstart your creative juices to consider different…