Work Naturally.
A long time ago, I wrote the following commenting on something Luc Hoebeke told me at his house outside Leuven. It’s a good reminder today as I continue to see people want large endeavors to work like tight jazz combos. I have some friends and relatives who are pros — instrumentalists and vocalists in pop, jazz and even baroque chamber …
What does a great workplace look like? Walter Ulmer took a stab at defining it over 25 years ago. He saw that there was a big difference between regular teams and high performance teams, one where everyone took it to the next level. And what is the essence of a “supportive” climate that promotes esprit and gives birth to “high …
Let’s continue our look at strategy vs. execution with a further look at what strategy is. Most business people seem to use “strategy” to mean “reasons that we do something” or “basis for our decision-making”. Execution builds the car while strategy says what car to build, or whether you should build a car at all at this time. You can …
(123rf.com) I’m always entertained by articles in the Strategy vs. Execution debate. Is a great strategy the most important thing or is it flawless execution? Ken Favaro (“with Evan Hirsh and Kasturi Rangan”) tackled the topic in strategy+business recently (“Strategy or Execution: Which Is More Important?“). The subtitle gives away the plot: “Many business leaders think they’d rather have great …
Postmodern art, like Neoclassical art, is above all an art of the surface: an art of reflections rather than visions. It has thrived in the depthless world of high-speed offset printing and digital design, where modernism starves. But the world of the sribes, in which the craft of type design is rooted, was a depthless world too. It was the …
A regular problem for me with my Macbook Pro is getting the sound disappearing because the headphone jack gets stuck in optical mode (TOSLINK on). You can tell it’s happened because: a red light is on inside the headphone jack (the light is the TOSLINK signal); and adjusting the volume through the sound controls brings up a sound meter with …
Why won’t they ever leave?! You know the person I’m talking about. The one in your crew who comes to the party and then doesn’t leave. You drop hints, even change into your pyjamas, but the only way to “the party’s over” through their thick skull is to physically shoo them out the door. There’s very little more aggravating than …
Can you love your direct reports? The guys of Manager Tools say “yes” and add that it has to include demands for performance. Here’s why. If you want to be a great manager and get high performance consistently out of your team, you must learn to balance to two sides of management: caring and demanding. It’s a tough one to …
“Could you believe the gall of that guy?” We were coming out of a rather dreadful sermon on giving in our small, startup church. We were a congregation of mostly low earners — even me at the time — and money was going to be tight, even if everyone did their Biblical 10% (even pre-tax). The pastor decided it was …
From now on, I’m not going to work with HHPs! I’m only going to work with 2HiPo’s. HHPs always sounded like a bad computer company. “Two high poe” conveys more about who you people are. So my new seminar series will be 2HiPo-centered. We also have a new logo that will be rolling out once I can find a color …
