I could care less if you read this blog. Of course, I’m being partly sarcastic and partly ironic when I write that. Since words matter, language purists often point out the phrase ‘I could care less’ is illogical and even an “an ignorant debasement of language”. If you don’t care about something at all, then…
A few weeks ago I read “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done” by Peter Bregman. 18 Minutes is a business self-help entertaining book based on his blog and weekly Harvard Business Review columns. The book suggests a process for prioritizing your day in 18 minutes over a nine-hour…
You say you want a revolutionWell, you knowWe all want to change the world Many readers will recognize these lines as the opening to the Beatles’ 1968 song Revolution. More than just a catchy tune, the song is notable because it was the first time the Beatles expressed political views so publicly. We might all…
Keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out. As part of a recent talk around creating a culture of innovation, I included this quote which is commonly attributed to physicist Richard Feynman. After the talk, a reporter asked me for the source of the quote to use in an article….
It’s amazingly hard to ask good questions. I’ve been in investigative mode over the last month; trying to understand the root cause of a performance issue and also designing a potential new business model. Both projects mean I’ve had to ask a lot of questions. And they also mean I have had to remind myself…
What you don’t do determines what you can do. Tim Ferriss, author of the cult hit and international best-seller ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’, makes that observation in a podcast last month. I completely agree. In my 2009 post on Prioritization, I note: Prioritization is as much about what we choose not to do as what we…
During my career I’ve often used animal stories to help illustrate specific points, reinforce behaviors, or to provide colorful rallying cries. Whether it’s elephants, monkeys, or camels, stories about animals are easy to remember and therefore more likely to be repeated. The heart of good communication is repetition. When I originally introduced the story of the…
After a lot of feedback on my earlier post, here are some more quotes about how failure is the new black: “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” Roger Von Oech, American author “There…
A few years ago I wrote a series of posts with quotes about Performance Management (Feb 2009, Sept 2009, May 2010). Last week the Global Language Monitor announced that ‘404’ and ‘fail’ are the two most popular words of 2013. Given the popularity of failure, I thought I would catalog a few of my favorite quotes about…
Possibly because my mantra is ‘words matter’ or that I’ve been writing continuously for many years, I get asked for tips on better writing. For years, I quoted George Orwell’s advice on how to be simple and clear, including my personal favorite: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out….