I recently had the chance to take an entertaining and enlightening class from Bob Sutton, professor of management at Stanford University and author of the book “The No Asshole Rule.” By Professor Sutton’s definition, workplace assholes are employees who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who are openly aggressive to others who have…
Three different perspectives on how to talk with or present to senior executives: 1) John Baldoni uses the following tips for Making Small Talk With Bigwigs: Do your homeworkFind out what the executive cares about ahead of time; for example, don’t focus on profits if growth is on the agenda. Be yourselfWhile some formality is needed,…
Years ago, I took a class called “Managing With Influence” from Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University and author of the book subtitled “Profiting from Evidence-Based Management.” During the class, Professor Pfeffer claimed layoffs do not improve financial performance – except in the very short term. He based this on a careful analysis of…
Words matter. Using the the phrase software consumption rather than building, marketing, and selling software can allow you to re-imagine your business. Here’s one such story: I’m a fan of the logic model because it emphasizes outcome KPIs that monitor impact rather than output metrics that track activities. I also like strategy maps because they are simple…
Why is change management so hard? I believe it’s because most humans fear the unknown. Change jeopardizes daily routines, modifies inter-personal relationships, and – most of all – forces us to deal with the unknown. The classic Who Moved My Cheese? tells the story of four creatures in a maze and how they react when their…
“Which blogs are the most popular?” It’s a question I’ve started hearing again lately, especially as many of my work colleagues have begun experimenting with social media. This is an unanswerable measurement question, just like for analyst relations or marine terminal gates. To try to answer the question, many people cite Technorati’s Top Blogs (original link…
Speedlinking on management styles and 2010 predictions: New research from The Work Foundation suggests that outstanding performance comes from people-centric leadership rather than target-driven, micro-management. The authors observe that “outstanding leaders are focused on performance but they see people as the means of achieving great performance and themselves as enablers. They don’t seek out the limelight for…
I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions as the once-per-year goal settings usually come with unrealistic targets. Without reasonable goals, resolutions take a back seat to day-to-day realities. In fact, a recent Marist poll shows half of Americans make resolutions but only about 1/3 of those who do keep them for longer…