Oblivion: It’s Sweeping the Nation

January 20, 2012

I suspect most of us roam the earth because our foremothers and fathers possessed an acute sense for survival. These survival skills must have included a keen awareness of their surroundings, perceptivity to changes, heightened consciousness, and the finely-honed interpersonal sensitivities to co-exist with other humans for long rides in covered wagons or ship steerage. [...]

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What is Customer Service?

January 9, 2012

When I was learning to read, teachers encouraged me to look for “contextual clues” to figure out what a given word meant.  If we were to do that in analyzing “customer service,” we might erroneously conclude that it has to do with serving customers. “Customer service” describes what a given company decides you should have. [...]

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Leadership Lessons from Zombies

December 30, 2011

Sometime in the past two years, perhaps while I was distracted by the vampire craze, zombies started presenting a more menacing presence. Scores of television programs, movies, and books have seemingly sprung from nowhere to teach us to survive a zombie attack.  For example, Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, has dominated [...]

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Business Lessons from Christmas Shoppers

December 5, 2011

Last year my friend, Debbie, was dating a man named Bill. As any smart boyfriend would do, he asked Debbie what she wanted for Christmas. She told him she’d like a new sweater and then showed him the kind of thing she had in mind. Bill mentioned that she could use a one-cup coffee maker [...]

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Revolting and Seeing Red

December 2, 2011

There “they” go again, changing something that was just fine to start with, but this mistake may have been short-lived. Coca-Cola Co. plans to switch back to its time-honored red can just one month after rolling out the snow-white animal can the company introduced for the holidays. I’m no innovation-averse Luddite.  On the contrary, look [...]

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Hire for Talent; You Can Buy Experience by the Pound

November 22, 2011

Last night I saw Moneyball, the blockbuster movie based on Michael Lewis’s best seller, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. The movie has been successful for some obvious reasons, one being that Brad Pitt is not too hard to look at for two hours. But I liked it for an imperceptible one. It [...]

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When Can the Occupiers Go Home?

November 4, 2011

Some thought the snow in the Northeast last weekend would cause the Wall Street occupiers to go home. It didn’t. When a friend commented on the fact, I responded, “They can’t. They haven’t achieved their objective.” That’s the rub. When you don’t have an objective, you don’t know when you can go home. The same [...]

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Leadership Lessons from the World Series

October 28, 2011

Last night, during game six of the World Series, Cardinal player Matt Holliday made an error that would have embarrassed a high school player—he dropped an easy fly ball to left field. As he and Rafael Furcal collided, the game looked more like a Three Stooges episode than a competition involving world-class athletes. Why? Two [...]

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Nice Job in Life

October 6, 2011

In 2005, one year after receiving a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs told an audience: “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” The most productive chapter in Steve Jobs’s career occurred in the six years after that [...]

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Corporate Values and the Honor Code

October 3, 2011

Last week I spent a day at the Air Force Academy as part of the National Security Forum’s annual reunion. From the time our group entered the academy grounds until we left, we saw evidence of the cadet honor code: “We will not lie, cheat, or steal nor tolerate among us anyone who does.” This is [...]

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