Three Tips To Take A Leap

I had lunch today with an old friend and colleague in Pittsburgh, catching up on life and work. Its probably been 18 months since we got together last. A great conversation, good to see him again and see how his kids are growing up so fast. He lives in Toronto and work brings him to Pittsburgh regularly, but this was the first time we had seen each other in ages. Conversation turned to business and while I won’t share the context of our (private) lunch, I was reminded of three key lessons that life has taught my friend and I since we first met as colleagues in Brussels in the 90s.

Introducing the DoBand Campaign

In today’s fast paced internet world where ideas, action and start-up businesses make headlines every day its hard to separate the really good ideas from the short-lived hypes. Thanks to a team of students at Cornell University I am pleased to share one of the best ideas I have seen in a long time. The DoBand concept (www.DoBand.org) was inspired by the movie Pay It Forward, but takes the concept from the movie to a whole new level of personal involvement.

Whats In A Name?

There is nothing more frustrating than forgetting a name, especially one you just heard a moment ago. Or you are at a conference and this smiling face comes up to you and says "Shahriar! How are you? Its been a long time!" and you are thinking to yourself I know this guy, whats his name again? And the impression it leaves on the person is pretty bad, somewhere between disappointment and feeling insulted...

Remembering Apollo 13

Exactly 30 years ago on April 13, 1970 astronaut and mission commander James Lovell spoke those infamous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem” from the spacecraft Odyssey, better known as Apollo 13. What transpired over the next 72 hours is well known and documented in history books and in the Tom Hanks film Apollo 13. But in remembering the story of how 3 astronauts found themselves stranded on a malfunctioning spacecraft and were guided home by a team of engineers on the ground in Houston’s Kennedy Space Center, I stumbled on a remarkable story of leadership the likes of which we have not seen too many times since.

Spring Leadership

Its April and Spring has arrived, my favorite time of year. Its not just the change in weather that makes this a wonderful time of year, but also the change that happens in everything and everyone around us. It doesn’t matter what you do, the start of the second quarter of the calendar year means we shift gears up and push the gas pedal on whatever it is we are trying to achieve in our lives.

Fail Fast

The best piece of advice I ever received in my career was to fail fast. Like most young graduates coming out of school I was determined to be successful and never fail. In fact, from an early age it was engrained in me that failure is not an option.  None of this “everyone received a trophy for participating” stuff that seems to be more and more the norm in America’s schools and competitions. You worked hard to be the best you can be, and there was nothing else. But when you come out of school and are thrown into the fast world of business, profits and growth, you realize that trying to be perfect is likely the fastest path to failure.

Value Creation = What Drives The Market

Perhaps the most important thing I have learnt in my professional life that my education failed to teach is that markets do not reward merit, they reward value. These are two entirely different things yet politicians, the labor market and the Press still confuse the two. At Davos French President Nicolas Sarkozy proclaimed that the recent financial meltdown had demonstrated that letting markets decide executive compensation was "morally indefensible." Mr. Sarkozy said "There are remuneration packages that will no longer be tolerated because they bear no relationship to merit." Mr. Sarkozy, like his counter parts in the US and UK, fails to appreciate this key criteria of what makes a free market the best option for every individual in the world.  And many free market supporters equally confuse value with the cult of market meritocracy, a distinction that can prevent their hard work from being rewarded.