Longtime readers of my blog know I find ideas for blogs everywhere, from psychology experiments to work events to the origin of words and phrases. Lately, however, books have become my primary source of inspiration. In fact, it’s not uncommon for me to have multiple blog ideas after reading a book. That was the case…
For U.S. retailers, Halloween kicks off the end-of-year holiday spending spree (time to panic: it’s only 54 shopping days until Christmas). Even though Halloween didn’t become a commercial holiday until the early 1900’s, it is now the fifth most profitable holiday for US retailers behind Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Various reports show…
When we face complexity, we have a choice between a simple solution and a complex solution. Donald Sull Over the last few months, I made a dent in my book reading list and now have a sizable backlog of potential blogs. One book I particularly enjoyed was ‘Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex…
If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.Soichiro Honda Over the last few months, I spent a fair amount of time looking for people to add to my team. Actually, that’s…
As you probably guessed from my previous post, I have a lot of books in my office I’ve never read. I do plan on reading them – eventually – but new books often arrive faster than I can read my existing ones. Occasionally, I give books away; but only those I have read and that…
Even though I’m an avid reader, I don’t make a dent in my reading backlog because new books arrive faster than I can read existing ones. I often ask people for recommendations or informal reviews when trying to decide what to read next. For that reason, I’ve never read ‘Mastery‘ by Robert Greene – too many…
You’re gonna need a bigger boat. — Roy Scheider as Martin Brody in Jaws For nearly 30 years, a good friend and I have had an on-going debate on the greatest movie line of all time. Actually, for the first few years, it wasn’t much of a debate. We both agreed “Luke, I am your…
The local dump was so overflowing that it had to refuse refuse. If you’re like most people, that sentence looks wrong. After all, it has the same word repeated twice in a row. Most of us assume it can’t be proper grammar. While it’s true that repeated words usually are bad grammar, in this case…
When I posted a list of quotes on prioritization and saying no, I was surprised how quickly it became my most viewed post of the year. I obviously touched on a nerve. I also received more than a dozen emails about the post; most of them went something like this: I want to say no to things but…
Over the years, I’ve compiled multiple lists of quotes about performance management, technology, and failure. Lately I’ve been thinking about prioritization and how to deal with the unending requests for my time. As I blogged about last year, I’ve had some luck using Tim Ferriss’ advice on 9 habits we all should stop — although I admit…