From the category archives:
The recent secret service scandal has once again thrust a disgrace into the limelight. Several men have already lost their jobs, more will probably follow, and the US suffers embarrassment on the international stage. I can hear the clarion cry. “Let’s throw some training at this!” We hear this wail consistently right after the “Something [...]
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Lewis Terman recognized the importance of intelligence when he pioneered his IQ tests in the early 1900s. In his opinion, nothing about an individual is as important as IQ, except possibly morals. I would agree, except to add that you need to be smart enough to do the job, not too much smarter than that. [...]
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When I was in elementary school, inevitably some kid in the class would ask the nun, “Does handwriting count?” Not known for patience or suffering fools lightly, these nuns would invariably give the same answer, “It all counts.” Apparently some of the people making the news this week didn’t attend the same schools I did. [...]
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Frequently I receive notice of a workshop or webinar that another consultant will offer. Since I once belonged to a human resources organization, my name appears on virtually every mailing list on the planet. Today I received an invitation to a webinar entitled “Managing Employees from Hell: Discipline That Gets Results.” Where do these companies [...]
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Since referrals are the coinage of my realm, I recently asked an executive coaching client, Greg, the CFO of a large company, to refer me to another executive in his organization. Apparently it worked, because a week later one of the vice presidents set up a meeting with me. When I met the vice president, [...]
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The resignation of Steve Jobs from Apple marks a sad milestone for both technology and leadership excellence. In recent years, no other enterprise leader has been so successful. Many consider him both a genius and a technology guru who had the temerity to ignore market research and push bold new products ahead of the market and [...]
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As the old joke goes, a reporter asked a business owner, “How many people work here?” “About half,” he responded. Recent research indicates that estimate might have been too ambitious for today’s companies because many leaders reported that only about 29% of their workfoce shows signs of strong engagement. What do the other two thirds do? [...]
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Recent research indicates that only about 38% of employees use all their allotted vacation time, and it’s not the boss’s fault. Only about 5% of those in the survey said it was. So why don’t people take the time off they’re entitled to? One word—fear. With recent cuts to the labor force, people have developed [...]
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Today there will be no shortage of Monday Morning Quarterbacks. I’d like to take my place among them. Yesterday was the culmination of months of work. NFL teams played each other during the season, routinely eliminating each other as competitors. After the playoffs, the final two contenders faced each other—each team fielding a team of [...]
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Amy Chua’s new bestseller, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, has stirred quite a controversy. According to Chua, raising successful children involves the strict discipline that she experienced as a child and that she advocates for western mothers. According to her, play dates, sleepovers, television, and sports waste the time of a child. Only academics [...]
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