Our previous post talked about Continuous Improvement, but it’s an important topic that deserves to be thoroughly explored, so please consider this a continuation of the discussion we began with our last post. No matter how good we are, we can always be better. No matter how proficient we are, we can always be more
“It’s important to have a sound idea, but the really important thing is the implementation.”
Picture this. You’re in a meeting to discuss a particular operating problem you need to solve. The group discusses several possible solutions, and finally settles on the one that seems most likely to succeed. Then the leader of the group says, “Good work gang! I think we’re on the right track here,” and adjourns the
“The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.”
“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” ~ Thomas Sowell “Has anyone ever said, ‘I wish I could go to more meetings today?’” ~ Matt Mullenweg “Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” ~ John Kenneth Galbraith I was going to say that meetings get a bad rap,
“Don’t do interviews. Interviews are boring. Make it a conversation.”
Brendan Reid, a business writer, author, and coach, points out that strong interviewing skills are critical to the success of any hiring manager. Obviously, bringing people on board who have the right skills, knowledge, experience, and temperament will have enormous benefit to the hiring manager and to the company. Yet few companies, except the very
“The best ideas for improving a job come from those who do it every day.”
A lot has been written lately about “employee engagement” . . . some of it right here. The Gallup organization, which has studied it for many years, says employee engagement can be measured by the strength of the emotional connection an employee feels toward his or her company. If the employee sings the company song,
“Time spent on hiring is time well spent.”
Even though the Great Recession is far back in our rearview mirror, the recovery has been painfully slow, particularly for small businesses. Small business owners have not gone on a hiring spree, in part, because they have learned how to get along without some of the positions they eliminated during the recession. Also, because the
“I do not believe you can do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.”
For most of us, when we think about innovation, we think about companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Google. We think about breakthrough, disruptive technologies like the GraphicalUser Interface which took access to the Worldwide Web from the hands of a few geeks who could write computer code and gave it to the masses. In other
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people. “
If you’re not a hockey fan, the name John McDonough probably doesn’t mean much to you. But if you’re a Chicago Blackhawks fan, you probably have a shrine to him somewhere in your home. He joined the Blackhawks in 2007 as President, and under his stewardship, the team’s season ticketholder base has grown from 3,400
“Why Do Smart People Fail?”
Decision-making and leadership are two CEO skills inextricably entwined. It’s true that you can be a world class decision-maker and still be a lousy leader . . . that is, you can be a great decision-maker but still have other behavioral characteristics that disqualify you as a great leader. However, the reverse is not true.
Solve Problems with Ignorance, Not Experience
“When you’re a little bit dumb and naïve, things get done that no one believed could be done.” We don’t know who said that, but it’s true. Consider the new, fresh-faced young salesman who marches into an account we wrote off long ago as a waste of time. We all laugh at his innocence and
