From the category archives:
Business stories aren’t just stories. They’re the underpinnings of company culture and policy; powerful, and possibly dangerous.
Consider this: If customer service representatives get together for morning coffee and swap stories about annoying customers, the level of customer service will go down. It’s unavoidable. If the people behind the counter at the coffee shop share annoying [...]
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Seems like negotiation week for me. I published this post about Seth Godin’s take on business development, and then another on how win-win is the only win in business negotiations. That leaves me thinking about negotiations I’ve been involved in, things that have worked, and things that haven’t worked. And I end up wanting to post the [...]
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I really like this video (8 minutes), not just for what it says, but also for what it doesn’t say.
As Jeff Bezos stands comfortably in front of the YouTube camera, in a garden, with a flip chart, I’m reminded of the “it’s good to be king” refrain in Mel Brooks’ classic History of the World [...]
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I posted here yesterday about what makes a good manager. I asked whether you are a good manager, and how you would know if you aren’t.
One thing I’ve thought of since is one way to tell you aren’t a good manager. Sometimes the negatives are easier. And although I can’t imagine all the different ways [...]
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What makes a good manager? Is it something you’re born with, or something you learn? Is there management instinct? I don’t know for sure. I’ve been in business for more than 30 years now, and I still don’t know.
A few years ago I was trapped on a plane with nothing to read but The One-Minute [...]
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On the bad days, in off moments, it seems like my two years in business school were mostly about learning the definitions of a few key buzz words to use in meetings.
1. ROI
Stands for return on investment, as in profits divided by total investment. For fun in boring meetings, think of it as “run out [...]
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I was lucky. As Palo Alto Software grew up it found some good people along the way. Some of them stuck with us, and some were related to me, a second generation. We had a sense of community that seems, now that it’s grown, vital to that growth.
But I’ve never really understood about managing employees. [...]
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It was back in our startup days, in all the excitement of our first getting into channels, which was followed by an onslaught of competition. We were beginning to see financial daylight, but we were behind in payments, and our channels were slow to pay. I was worried.
“But what’s to worry about?” Cahill (Cal) Brown asked. [...]
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I saw this on Twitter yesterday, posted by Meghan Biro:
Remember that the six most expensive words in business are: “We’ve always done it that way.”–Catherine DeVrye
She makes a good point. In my 30+ years in business I’ve seen way too much of “we’ve always done it that way” and I’d like to think (maybe I’m [...]
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You know who you are. You hate selling, but here you are, making your way as entrepreneur, having to sell or sink.
Me? I’m a terrible salesperson. I’m also bad at networking, cocktail parties, and small talk with people I don’t know. Do I seem stuck up, aloof? Not really, just awkward.
I’m probably still scarred from [...]
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