Business Management

Is This Mad Men Then or Silicon Valley Now?

May 4, 2012

A lot has happened during my lifetime to give women more and better choices. What you see in the TV drama Mad Men about how hard the business world was for women, back then, is what I remember from those times. So there has been progress. But damn, let’s not confuse progress towards equality with [...]

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The Paradox of Profits

April 27, 2012

We take it for granted. One of the main goals of a business is making a profit. Right? Maybe not. Answer this question: What makes a business more valuable? Is it profits, or growth? Or future prospects? And then this question: Don’t you have a straight trade-off between profits and growth? Assume you have money [...]

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5 Hard Lessons Related to Firing Somebody

February 13, 2012

So you start your business, and you get it going, and growing. If you have employees, it’s likely you’re going to have to deal with firing somebody. Here are my some of my thoughts (based on actual experience; not theoretical) on that subject. Having to fire somebody who’s been trying hard and failing is the [...]

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3 Questions Business Owners Need to Ask About Employee Expenses

February 9, 2012

Do you own a business? Do you run a business? Then I recommend you follow me through this simple math and some reasonable conclusions. Assume you have a person making a $50,000 gross salary. Assume their true cost — including health insurance, overhead, work space, computers, Internet, electric power, payroll taxes, etc. — is $80,000. That [...]

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Make My Business Analysis Intuitive, Please.

February 3, 2012

Are you thinking type or feeling? Analytical or intuitive? There are studies, there are tests, there’s a whole body of work on personality types dividing people into types. Most of us have heard of this, but if you haven’t, and you’re curious, you could find out more with this google search. It’s about the work [...]

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Do You Like Working Alone, in Teams, or Both?

January 25, 2012

Did you perhaps catch The Rise of the New Groupthink on the NYtimes.com last week? Here’s author Susan Cain’s interesting lead … SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious [...]

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Good Business Decisions Aren’t Made by Vote

January 23, 2012

Have you heard this? It’s not mine, I think it’s sort of common knowledge: If the decisions were made by consensus, every wall would be painted beige. As my business grew up from entrepreneurial to stable, we had to redo our decision process. Early on, we sat around, a few of us, discussed and decided. [...]

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Surprising Truths About Motivations

January 9, 2012

Do you know the RSA Animate technique? Have you seen it before? This is a great example, and it’s also a good business lesson, about motivation. What’s surprising? Well, to start out, money doesn’t motivate people to do thinking tasks better. It does for simple mechanical tasks — people work harder for more money — [...]

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How Building a Business Is Like Building Good Habits

January 4, 2012

I really like Leo Babauta’s work on his blog Zen Habits. Zen appeals to me personally and Zen Habits strikes me as full of real-world wisdom for dealing with actual life. And sometimes it strikes me that what Leo is saying about personal life applies just as well to business. For example, here is the [...]

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