“525,600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?” That’s the question the Tony award-winning musical RENT asks in the opening scene of the second act. And that’s the question we ask ourselves as well at the beginning of every year. Twelve months, 52 weeks, 365 days, and 525,600 minutes. How do we make them […]
Read MoreI know it sounds selfish, but it’s true. You are your first priority. And that’s where a lot of business leaders have got it wrong. Everything else, from minute-by-minute text interruptions to late night spreadsheet updates, gets their attention instead of taking care of themselves. But let me ask you, why do airlines tell passengers […]
Read MoreAlways being on. Anywhere, anytime, any place. Former Microsoft executive, Linda Stone, refers to this as “continuous partial attention.” According to Linda, continuous partial attention is not multitasking. Multitasking involves doing a couple of mindless activities at the same time, like listening to the news while cleaning your office or talking on the phone while filing […]
Read MoreA survey of millions of American workers conducted by the Gallup Corporation discovered that 65% of them received no praise or recognition for the work they did in the past year. That’s right, for two-thirds of the workforce a whopping 52 weeks went by without any affirmation. It’s like we’re saying to our employees, “I […]
Read MoreTraditional time management says this: Do you have 10 things to do today? I can show you how to do 15. Do you have 15 things to do today? I can show you how to do 20. But what happens when you have 30, 40, and 50 things to do every single day like we […]
Read MoreHere’s a tale of two businesses: Tom, the owner of a busy retail store, was working in his office when his desk chair broke. Quickly, before running off to an important vendor meeting, Tom bought a new chair at the office warehouse down the street. He drug the box in from the car and asked […]
Read MoreTeams are all the rage today. We have executive teams and sales teams, product development teams and cross-functional teams. Most teams, however, are not teams at all but mere committees. Not only do these groups waste precious time and energy, but they miss the powerful synergy that real teams achieve. Here’s why your team is […]
Read MoreI was working with a client recently putting the final touches on a quarterly sales contest he was conducting with his team. We noticed from past quarterly contests that his people started well and ended well, but in-between they needed extra motivation. So we added a few fun twists for weeks five, six, seven, and […]
Read MoreThe word customer is, perhaps, the most important word in the language of business. Without customers, we don’t have a business. Or if we have one, we won’t have it for very long. Yet in my years of working with businesses, I have found them woefully ignorant about their customer. The reason for this, however, […]
Read MoreA great irony about vision is that it’s born, not on the mountaintop, but in the valley; not in the light, but in the darkness. It’s created by adversity. Whereas most people would conform to the limitations of current reality, sinking into it like quicksand, visionaries do just the opposite. They refuse to accept the […]
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