Published in The Business Reader·Jan 25, 2018“What Problem Are You Trying To Solve?”A Q&A with MIT Professor Nelson Repenning on the “most underrated management skill” It’s often said that most business books would make better articles, but once in while you read an article that turns the truism on its head. …Leadership3 min readLeadership3 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Jan 19, 2018Narcissists, Venus Flytraps, and Swindlers, Oh MyThe 3 Most Dangerous Work Personalities and How to Deal With Them Since I don’t have a real job, I take special pleasure in reading about how miserable it can be to go to work with lots of other people. That’s why I found it impossible to resist Jody Foster’s…Work4 min readWork4 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Jan 1, 2018Ayn Rand can make you a better leaderThe 7 virtues proposed by the controversial author of Atlas Shrugged are traits leaders should cultivate. No argument. Ayn Rand is one of the most polarizing figures in American culture — and she’s been dead for 35 years. People either love or hate the author of Atlas Shrugged and The…Ayn Rand4 min readAyn Rand4 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Dec 19, 2017What Experience Would You Like With That?An annotated tour of the literature on customer experience Greetings from Williamsburg, Va., an outpost on the new frontier called the experience economy. Well, maybe not so new. John D. Rockefeller Jr., the only son of an iconic figure in the rise of the industrial economy, began buying up this…Customer Experience11 min readCustomer Experience11 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Dec 10, 2017Peter Drucker’s Advice to Aspiring LeadersFive time-proven practices from the legendary management consultant There aren’t a lot of business books from a half-century ago that have stood the test of time, but Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive, available in a spiffy 50th Anniversary edition, is one of the select few. In 1967, when many of…Leadership4 min readLeadership4 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Dec 8, 2017The Dubious Value of First ImpressionsIn his new book, Face Value, Princeton psychologist Alexander Todorov explores our predilection for judging other people at a glance. The list of human foibles is long. Wikipedia lists more of them than I care to count. …Psychology4 min readPsychology4 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Dec 2, 2017How to be a Naked AutocratRajeev Peshawaria’s Five Keys to Positive Autocratic Leadership Lately, I’ve been wondering how to square the discipline of leadership with its realities. Leadership theory is all about inclusion, collaboration, and a servant-like approach. Leadership reality…well, you can read the headlines in any paper of record for that. …Leadership8 min readLeadership8 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Dec 1, 2017A leadership lesson from Keith Richards, world’s most indestructible rock starIn early September, the Rolling Stones kicked off their “No Filter” European Tour in Hamburg, Germany. The opening act was Kaleo, an Icelandic band whose four members were all born in 1990. Hell, their parents probably weren’t born when the septuagenarian Stones started out in 1962. The Stones have run…Music3 min readMusic3 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Mar 22, 2017Exaggerated Truth-Telling Is Commonplace, But Not AdmirableIn 1919, as the White and Red armies fought a brutal, seesaw war for control of Russia, British War Secretary Winston Churchill prodded his government to commit troops to the fight. The Bolsheviks, he declared, were “swarms of typhus bearing vermin.” They “hop and caper like ferocious baboons amid the…Leadership3 min readLeadership3 min read
Published in The Business Reader·Mar 15, 2017Regulation, Who Needs It?President Trump wasted no time launching his promised war on federal regulation. Ten days after the inauguration, he signed Executive Order 13771: Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs. You’ve probably already heard that EO 13771 is a two-for-one deal. It requires that every newly proposed federal regulation be accompanied by…Regulation3 min readRegulation3 min read
