All Posts Tagged With: "NY Times"

How To Know You’re Working for the Wrong Company (If Your Glass is Half Full)

March 1st, 2008 • Starbucker • 2 comments • Click to view Related Articles
Filed Under: Featured Articles • Fellow Half-Fullers • Half-Fullism • Leadership • The Business Pages

In a well worth reading profile of J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler today in the NY Times by Joe Nocera, I found one of the best “tells” a Half-Fuller could ever find about whether or not he or she is working in the right place.

Earlier in Drexler’s career he worked for a big department store, and he ultimately knew that job wasn’t for him when he observed:

“They look at you funny when you show too much passion”

Think about that one the next time you make a big pitch in front of your bosses, or try to exhort your teammates to greater heights.

Passion is the magic elixir that separates good companies from great. It needs to be prevalent with nearly everyone in the organization, especially at the top.

Mickey Drexler’s passion for “anticipating what clothes people would want to wear before they even knew it themselves” is paying off in a big way for J. Crew (they are growing nicely in a down economy), and his teammates are all the better for it, because they sure aren’t getting any “funny looks” from him.

And their men’s shirts ain’t half bad either…… :-)

A Friday Shout-Out: Trevor’s in the New York Times!

January 11th, 2008 • Starbucker • 2 comments • Click to view Related Articles
Filed Under: Fellow Half-Fullers • Half-Full Book Review

It’s always a great moment when the writing of one of your fellow friends and bloggers gets recognized in the national press.    In an interesting way, we share in that success because of the supportive environment we’ve nurtured - almost like a family would with a brother or sister.

So it was especially gratifying to see that my good friend across the pond, “Mr. Simplicity” Trevor Gay, was mentioned in none other than the New York Times the other day.   Trevor and I have known each other now “virtually” for nearly two years, and I’ve found him to be a wonderful writer who brings a warm and fresh perspective to the craft of leadership, a perspective that I greatly admire and respect (and learn from).

The mention was in association with Trevor’s book, “Simplicity is the Key“. The NY Times was outlining the distinctions between a good boss and a bad boss, and Trevor’s lists of the attributes of each type were quoted directly from the text (along with a link to a blog post he wrote on the subject).

I’m as proud as I can be that Trevor got this well deserved recognition, because his messages about leadership are such good ones - that the “soft stuff” is vitally important, and that we should trust and support our front line staff.

Simplicity indeed.  Well done Trevor!

Just remember us when you make the NY Times bestseller list. :-)