Wednesday, March 7, 2012

What You Need To Understand About The Concept Of Time

In business one of the most frustrating things is the lack of urgency. Corporations are notorious for this. They take a long time to make decisions and executives think nothing of delaying meetings and decisions for weeks or months. In contrast, when you work with start-ups in Silicon Valley they move so fast it can leave your head spinning. The concept of time and urgency are very different depending on which business you are in, how much money you have to burn and the kind of leaders at the helm.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Creating Wealth In Times of Uncertainty: Guest Post

I attend a lot of meetings and networking events as part of the efforts to build our North American business. One of the common topics in this election year is job creation, and government's role in the same. I hear people share their views on this hot topic and its interesting to discern between those who truly have a view based on fact versus those who repeat rhetorical views from the media, politicians and academics.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Super Bowl's Lessons From Mrs. Brady

Another year, another Super Bowl. As the planet knows by now, the New York Giants did it again. They beat the New England Patriots again. They had a late 4th Quarter winning drive again. Their team did just enough to beat an opponent that was every bit their equal. Yet post-game media was focused on the losing Quarterback's wife, super model and business star Gisele Bundschen, and her comments after the loss.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Fallacy of Social Proof

Herd behavior is an epidemic in our society today. Known as large groups conforming to choices which may be either correct or mistaken as a result of social influence, psychology research goes pretty deep into this phenomenon. One definition I read for social proof is people assuming the actions of others to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. This effect is prominent in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior, and is driven by the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation. Regardless of semantics, social proof is in every part of our world.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

New Low For The British

This past week the British government stripped former RBS CEO Fred Goodwin of his knighthood. 

Friday, January 20, 2012

BS Thyself Not

I had a boss early in my career who was one of those philosophical types, always dropping sayings or quotes to make his point. He thought he was quite smart and cool, very pleased with himself when he could drop a Churchill or Emerson quote, two of his favorites. We all thought he was a bore at the time.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Need For Quantifiable Objectives

2012 is meant to be the year America makes its economic comeback. Since the economy tanked in 2007-8, we have been conditioned to believe that economic power and superiority has passed to China and our era was over. The US has too much debt, not enough prospect for growth, and we have outsourced our way to becoming an irrelevant economy.