Fantastic piece the other day by David Brooks (welcome back, David!) on humility and the lack thereof (High-Five Nation). The Joe Wilson / Serena Williams / Kanye West fiascos provided the opening to a piece that highlighted how our attitudes towards war and foreign policy changed since World War 2. WW2 ended with the US […]
After 10 years working with my wife (Rena Reich) at Answers.com I’m now watching her do great things on her own site, The Pet Wiki. So in the evening I watch my wife creating on her own and it gives me food for thought for working as part of a team the next day. It’s […]
This site’s loyal readers (both of you) probably noticed by now that I can be negative sometimes. Actually, you don’t know the half of it, this site is my positive side. Anyway, Seth Godin just tricked me (again) with a post titled The Problem with Positive Thinking. Spoiler alert: His “problem” with it was that […]
Some will say there’s only one don’t to performance evaluations — don’t do them. Tom Peters said it takes the average employee six months to recover, and that performance evaluations are the worst things manager do. I think he’s exaggerating — I’ve done much worse things. But I accept much of his point — it’s […]
I found this hysterical: It made me think of the Product Management implications. Star Trek was saved by a small community of die-hard fans. They have conferences. Some write books extending the series. Others spend endless hours learning fictional languages. This is a legendary, passionate community, without whom Star Trek would never have made it […]
The other day I was surprised to hear my daughter singing Harry Chapin’s Dreams Go By, a song written by a guy who died about a dozen years before my daughter was born. Then I remembered that her mom put a bunch of our old CDs on my daughter’s iPod. We talked about the song […]
It’s easier and more fun to criticize and discuss negatives, but let me describe what work is like when it’s going well, so we can remember what our goal as managers is, and why it’s worth it. You look forward to going to work every morning. You already know what you’re going to accomplish today, […]
My weakness (among others): I try to impress people with my knowledge. I need them to know that I’m on top of key issues and that I work hard. The situation: I’m on vacation and an e-mail is sent to the senior management team with a partial analysis of some key numbers. My (very incorrect) […]