How to profit by making better use of your mental “peripheral vision”

Regular readers will know that I’m a birder and sometimes draw analogies between what I’ve learned from watching birds and the topics I write about here.
This time it’s peripheral vision: literally seeing things out of the corner of your eye. At work, you [...]

Why egotism is fatal to good leadership — and why it is so common today

“To have without possessing,
do without claiming,
lead without controlling;
this is mysterious power.”
Tao Te Ching, Lau Tzu (tr. Ursula K. Le Guin)
Egotism causes blindness, selfishness, over-confidence, and arrogance.
It inflates people into domineering monsters focused on petty personal victories. It wrecks relationships. [...]

What makes the difference between the work of a craftsman and the output of a hack?

Is it talent? That certainly has something to do with it. Is it application? Again, yes: though application won’t be enough on its own. Is it skill? Certainly, though skill again isn’t sufficient without the extra element that I am [...]

If you value theory over experience, you’re headed for problems

My wife found this snippet in Saturday’s New York Times, called “Same Office, Different Planets.” It refers to a survey from the magazine Workspan that asked both HR professionals and the employees themselves what were the most important factors in persuading people to stay with [...]

Avoiding the down-side of today’s management platitudes about competition

This guest posting is by Karen Senteio, Business and Life Coach and President of VERVE. You can read more about her and her business here.
The corporate world has gone mad — and we have gone mad with it. A disease has penetrated too many organizations. [...]

When things get rough — as now — beware of cowards, mixed messages, and macho managers

Tough times sort out the true leaders from those who wear the clothes but have nothing beneath them. Leaders lead; mere administrators, whatever their job titles, panic. Worst of all, fair-weather bosses infected by Hamburger Management send people mixed messages. [...]

Why the temptation to see individuals as key to organizational success is more dangerous that you think

It has once again been proved that we misunderstand the true causes of organizational success. Egged on by the media, who dote on simplistic answers to complex situations, we thoughtlessly treat the actions of CEOs and top teams as [...]

If you want to look back on a satisfying and happy life, conventional rules for success are not the place to start

Most conventional ideas about success go wrong because they focus on outcomes and results instead of on the processes of living. Outcomes come around from time to time, but life itself — the process [...]

Another simple approach to saving untold amounts of time

Do you need to save time and money? Do you want to lower costs and increase productivity? Do you face problems of getting enough done, even though you work long hours on a regular basis?
Would you like to know how to do this within the normal working [...]

You’re standing in a group, talking, and one of the members starts shooting verbal “zingers” at you. Everybody gets a hearty laugh at your expense. Everybody but you.

Light (and not-so-light) insult humor has become almost a national pastime. When you’re the butt of the jokes, you may try to shrug it off as harmless, but [...]