I was presenting our quarterly operations review to the executive team at my cable TV company. It had been a particularly good quarter for all of our operating metrics, and I was pumped. It was time to lay it all out there, and gather up the kudos. Because after all, who doesn’t like to be praised? The …
There is no question that having a high level of accountability in the workplace is a good thing -the trick is getting your teammates to that point of clarity without tipping the scale over too far. That is, how do you avoid what I call the “accountability trap“, where teammates are so focused on what happens …
“Terry, a fish stinks from its head down” It was three months into my maiden voyage as an executive, at age 27. I was in the middle of going over a laundry list of problems with my boss that had been vexing me for weeks. They were all coming from one particular region, and because of these …
Recently I sat down in Portland for an interview with Greg Hartle, author of the site “10 Dollars and a Laptop”. It was a wide ranging discussion that hit on several topics, but the core of it dealt with change and how to make it happen, even in a down economy. My very best thanks to …
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out what it means to me” Aretha Franklin is one of the best singers ever. So when she sings, I listen. Especially to her biggest hit. I love the conviction behind the lyric – it’s respect that she wants, and it’s respect that she’ll get. Or she’ll walk. And within the meaning of that song is …
About 6 years ago I was approached by one of my field managers about a new “callback” program he wanted to launch in one of our cable television service areas. He wanted to have “a real person” call a customer within 7 days of a new service installation, and have a conversation about that …
I’ll never forget my first day as an executive. I had just moved from San Antonio to Los Angeles for this “once in a lifetime” opportunity to be the head operations person for a cable TV company. I previously was an Audit Manager for Ernst & Whinney and hadn’t managed more than 5 people at …
Once a target is set in a business, for most leaders it’s a natural tendency to jump right into the business of hitting it – in other words, massing the effort and “push” needed to achieve what Jim Collins (“Good to Great”) called the “Flywheel Effect”. I’ve always liked the flywheel analogy, because it’s a great …
As leaders, we utter a lot of words, and in doing so, we trust that those who follow us will process them in just the way we intended. That can be quite difficult to do, given today’s short attention spans, and the usual times we do our talking. Take first thing in the morning, for example. …
I’m in Austin for the SXSW conference, and as usual, it’s a whirlwind of meetings, parties, more meetings, panels, more parties, and great conversations. Not the kind of place you’d expect to “see” leadership. But if you look carefully, and listen well, you find out that there are a lot of layers here – layers of human …
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