The Unimportance of Practically Everything HBR.org|Greg McKeown A friend of mine is the Executive Director for an organization with global reach. He is intelligent and driven, but constantly distracted. At any given time he will have Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and multiple IM conversations going. The majority of them are useful in some way. Yet, in the back[...]
Take Back Your Life in Seven Simple Steps HBR.org|Tony Schwartz In my most recent blog, I wrote about how we’ve allowed technology to take a pernicious toll on our attention, and in turn, on our creativity, our resilience, our relationships and, ultimately, our productivity. This week I’m turning my focus to how to wrest back control[...]
Attract and Keep A-Players with Nonfinancial Rewards HBR.org|Sylvia Ann Hewlett Attracting and retaining top talent are perennial concerns among managers, in good times and in bad. With salaries frozen even as the scope of work expands, managers find it nearly impossible to lure A-players and compensate existing high performers without breaking the budget. The good[...]
Caramel Covered Rotting Apples Courtesy of http://www.iomamerica.org One of my favorite treats is a caramel covered apple, particularly one with crushed goodies on top. Recently as I was contemplating our topic, God gave me an example that clearly communicates how the enemy deceives us into debt thinking. When Eve was looking upon the Tree of[...]
Are You Sleeping With Your Smartphone? HBR.org|Leslie A. Perlow Do you check your wireless device when you’re not working? What causes you to do so? Does the job require it? Do you like feeling needed? Yes, the client or customer might call. Yes, there are stresses from managing across time zones. Yes, there are real[...]
Boringness: The Secret to Great Leadership HBR.org|Joel Stein Until recently, I hadn’t really known any great leaders. As a writer, the highest-ranking people I deal with are editors, and they’re pretty much just writers who have gotten lazy. The only thing an editor has ever led me into is a bar. So my images of[...]
Putting Facebook in Perspective HBR.org|Mark Bonchek Every day brings some new bit of information — or hype — about social business. If you actively follow the social space, it’s easy to get caught in the never-ending stream. If you don’t, you may find all the talk about social overwhelming. So it’s useful to step back,[...]
The Inexperience Advantage HBR.org|Daniel Gulati Ever been shut down by someone who supposedly knows more than you? It happens to me daily. I get denied by people that are more senior, more polished, and more knowledgeable than me. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed professional rejection, but I try my best to dust[...]
Great Businesses Don’t Start With a Plan HBR.org|Anthony K. Tjan You want to start a business. So you need a plan, right? No. Not really. As part of the research for a book I’m co-authoring — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, due out in August from HBR Press — my colleagues and I interviewed and surveyed[...]
You Are Not A Computer (Try As You May) HBR.org|Tony Schwartz Technology is meant to serve us. Instead it increasingly runs us — and runs us down. Where we put our focus shapes our agenda and defines our experience in every moment. More and more, we’re turning over this precious resource to our digital technology,[...]