So, You Think You Want to Be a Leader

In a recent speech for about sixty undergrad management students, I posed the question: “How many of you either already occupy, or aspire to a professional role as a leader?” Everyone in the room raised a hand. After acknowledging delight in seeing so much interest, I then remarked soberly, “some of you probably need to […]

Leadership: Principle vs Popularity

The long life of an old family friend came to an end last week. More than a generation ago, this fellow was a high-profile public official in my hometown (appointed, not elected). And something of a controversial figure. I was a kid at the height of his notoriety, and I was always struck by the […]

Brexit and Feet Voting: Are Your Employees Next?

Since the June 23 referendum in which voters in the United Kingdom opted out of the European Union, there has been no small volume of ink and electrons applied to discussing the ramifications, good and bad (mostly bad) of what many describe as a surprising outcome. So rather than heap more words on that argument, I’m going […]

Take a Stand – A Leadership Lesson From Muhammad Ali

As a sports-minded teen growing up in West Virginia in the mid 60’s, I was an impressionable witness to the metamorphosis of a brash young boxer named Cassius Clay into the more fully formed adult who became known as Muhammad Ali. Our town wasn’t exactly a bastion of racial or social tolerance, so there wasn’t […]

I’m Sorry…Hold the If’s, And’s, and But’s

The song, “If I Could Turn Back Time” written by Diane Warren and performed by recording artist, Cher, laments our inability to completely erase and undo harm caused to another: “If I could turn back timeIf I could find a way I’d take back those words that hurt you and you’d stay. I don’t know why I […]

One Reason U.S. Productivity Growth Has Slowed, and What to Do About It

Economists have struggled over the last decade to attribute and explain the dramatic slowing of U.S. productivity growth. Since 2005, U.S. labor productivity growth (growth of measured output minus the growth of labor input) has been effectively sawed in half. As one of the few real indicators of economic vitality, understanding this phenomena is anything […]

Stupid Manager Tricks

For better than two decades, late night talk show host, David Letterman ran hilarious periodic segments, Stupid Pet Tricks, highlighting silly tricks that people had taught their pets to perform. In a somewhat similar fashion, most of us manager-types have, over the years and the course of our careers adopted or fallen into habits and thought […]

Three Things that will Improve Employee Engagement

Recently I read a piece in the e-version of a major business publication which, by title and implication suggested that seventy percent of Americans hate their work. The piece used as its factual anchor the oft-quoted “State of the American Workplace Report” by Gallup, which suggests that only about 30% of American workers are truly “engaged” in […]

Have You Ever Been Attacked by a Shark?

Guest post by Jonathan Cardwell Mick Fanning has been.  Last month while surfing a competition off the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Mick was attacked by a shark.  He bravely fought off the shark and escaped without any physical injuries. You may never come face to face with an actual shark.  You may never even […]

Should We Stop Doing Performance Reviews?

For the past few years there has been a hue and a cry, joined of late by large numbers of HR professionals, suggesting that companies need to stop doing traditional performance appraisals. You know what we’re talking about – those semi-annual (usually), awkward, occasionally unpleasant, and never timely conversations where you and your boss are […]