Adam Savage, special effects artist from “Mythbusters”, describes why Failure is vital, and why if he hadn’t done disastrous failures he wouldn’t be who he is today.
Jaques First To Use “Culture” About Companies
Geert Hofstede, in “Culture’s Consequences”, says it plain: Elliott Jaques was the first to use “culture” in management literature.
Your Love Life and the Law of the Real Boss
Learn how your love life is influenced by the Law of the Real Boss — discovered by Elliott Jaques and Wilfred Brown (etc.) at Glacier Metal — and the associated corollaries. If you are on a higher trajectory than others, finding a mate will be harder.
Lord Acton on Organization
Wilfred Brown (along with Elliott Jaques, to a lesser extent) understood what Lord Acton understood about power. They created a constitutional system of rights at Glacier Metal. Here’s why it’s important.
Lord Acton on Organization
Lord Acton described how leadership changed over time, and explains despotism pretty well. It applies to corporations.
How Do You Know What You Can Do If There’s No One Modeling It?
Dan Ariely, in Predictably Irrational, says “We don’t even know what we want to do with our lives  until we find a relative or a friend who is doing just what we think we should be doing.” Hidden high potentials often never get a model like this. What should they then do?
Bonuses Backfire by Reducing Long-term Employee Performance
New research shows that bonuses backfire on companies, even blocking common sense. A summary.
Employees Who Aren’t Team Players Make The Team Perform Better, But Like It Less
Teams need oddballs to help them make the best decisions. So being a team player is not necessarily a good thing, since a whole team of team players will lead to poorer decision making. Summary of recent research.
New Webinar: “Why You Hate Your Church”
Why You Hate Your Church. Sunday, 2009 April 19 at 8pm CDT / Chicago time A good percentage of readers of Requisite Writing are Christians of one sort of another, and a common complaint from them has been about how they feel alienated at church like the feel alienated at work. “It’s all well and good to say ‘find somewhere …
Latest Newsletter Now Out
The latest Secret Rules of Career Success newsletter is out. (Egyptian Dreams edition.) I’ve added a podcast version for subscribers to download and listen to. This is especially handy for commuters. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, check your spam folder. Thanks to Jim Krajewski of Echo Software — and my old comrade-in-arms in designing information security solutions for …