I finally mustered the guts to transition from written words to spoken ones. I’m so much more comfortable writing than I am in front of a camera. Entrepreneurship has taught me a lesson: that Nolan Bushnell was spot on when he declared, “everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the…
I’m a founder, CEO, and investor in a growing technology startup. Yes, I experience stress that accompanies my love and passion for what I do.
More to the point, my stress is frequently misunderstood. Unexpected things happen; many of them are due to mistakes made and associated human error, miscommunication, or missteps. It’s frequently assumed that it’s these mistakes that drive my stress. They aren’t. In this article, I explain why mistakes aren’t what worry or stress me and, instead, it’s our reaction to mistakes that does.
Mistakes are unintended tests of individuals and teams; how mistakes are handled reflects a Mistake Maturity measuring an individual and an organization’s ability to overcome and thrive. Below are the five levels of Mistake Maturity (MM): levels MM0 through MM4.
Over the years, I’ve come to depend on using three dimensions to evaluate employees; while many more sophisticated models have been devised by professional organizational behaviorists, I’m a fan of simplicity and the number 3 :-). I believe that understanding these three dimensions allows you to practically evaluate any employee and, more importantly, articulate their strengths…
Over the years, we all learn a few seemingly magic phrases. Children’s “magic words” used to be “please” and “thank you”; the following three expressions have equally magical effects when used by adults both in and out of the workplace. 1. “I need your help.” It’s so simple, isn’t it? “I need your help.” But,…
Even the most nascent of businesses have some sort of business plan that captures their “strategy”, their “vision”, the competitive landscape and how they’re going to disrupt and dominate it. After the hard work of authoring it and excitement of promoting it, it’s likely now sitting on a shelf or old hard drive collecting dust.…
It’s common wisdom that a trio of dimensions make up the context of business problems today: people, process, and product or technology. I have a slightly different take: the three are not orthogonal but are, in fact, hierarchical. That is: Great people create great processes which can be implemented by great product/technology. In short, when someone…
Much has been written about the importance of good management to an organization’s success; in fact, the field of organizational behavior has created a substantial and respected science around this and other aspects of building successful organizations. However, I’ve found that, with only a few characteristics, I can quickly identify the best managers in any…
The Elephant For many years now, in business offices and break rooms throughout the country, there was an “elephant in the room” nearly as taboo to acknowledge in a business setting as religious and/or political ideologies. After all of these years of being invisible and creating pent-up tension, that elephant not only made itself visible…
Against the Herd 