In the climactic scene of the movie A Few Good Men, Lieutenant Kaffee (Tom Cruise) demands the truth from a testifying Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson). Jack’s response is a cinema classic: You can’t handle the truth! It’s a mesmerizing scene which contains an interesting psychological tidbit. People often rate honesty as the most important value…
Do you know someone you think is a narcissist? A narcissistic personality is characterized by inflated views of the self, extreme vanity, and obsessive self-importance. The term comes from the mythical Greek character, Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Entranced by his own beauty, Narcissus stared…
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This commonly-used phrase reminds us that, no matter how far away a deadline is, we always seem to be rushed to complete the task. Some even cite it as evidence that setting impossibly short deadlines is good for efficiency. While most of us are…
Over the weekend, a senior manager at another company challenged me as to whether he really had to be digitally proficient. He went on to explain he had hired an intern for his social media presence and a personal online shopper for his clothes. He had an IT person to keep his smart phone up-to-date…
For reasons not worth getting into, this past week I was reminded of a decade-old HBS discussion entitled “How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?” The original discussion was prompted by a claim from Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer that leaders only explain 10% of a company’s performance. Instead, a company’s current performance…
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. -George S. Patton Motivational quotes like that can be inspirational but not very practical. Intellectually we know bad times eventually come to an end. But why is it that some people seem to bounce back more quickly than others? The authors of Stronger: Develop the…
One of my management principles is “passion for the mission is not optional.” To me, it’s critical that people believe in what we’re doing. In fact, I think the whole team believing in the mission is more important than having the exact right skills on the team. Culture eats strategy and passion beats talent. In…
If you are associated with marketing and advertising, you should read The Unpublished David Ogilvy. Actually, read it even if you aren’t. David Ogilvy is widely-considered the father of advertising. He founded advertising, marketing, and PR agency Ogilvy & Mather in 1948, and his legendary campaigns include Dove, Guinness, Hathaway, and Rolls Royce, Schweppes. In…
When the U.S. Navy chose Mike Abrashoff to become Commander of USS Benfold, the challenges which faced him were seemingly overwhelming. At the time, the Benfold was one of the worst-performing ships in the Navy; a “dysfunctional ship with a sullen crew that resented being there and could not wait to get out of the Navy.”…
When I first got into business, the HR manager asked me a series of informal questions which claimed to test my suitability for corporate life. As I recall, I didn’t do so well on the quiz but I’ve still managed to figure out the corporate gig. I recently came across the questions and started using…