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Better communication: Pause for 45 seconds, respond with respect

Pause In Meetings

The absolute No. 1 thing that gets the lowest scores on any employee survey, almost regardless of industry and context, is communication. This makes perfect sense: humans are flawed beings, they often want things they can’t explain properly, they often enter… Continue Reading

Creativity vs. the deadline

Creativity vs. Deadlines

One of the things I hate hearing the most at any job I’ve ever had is that something happened a certain way — a half-assed way — because people had to “get it out the door.” This is what I… Continue Reading

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The inherent dichotomy of e-mail length

How Long Should Your E-Mails Be?

Want to count the ways that e-mail is awful? Sure, let’s do that. It’s probably the biggest time-suck of the modern age. Even though it’s really easy to solve many work issues with a 5-minute convo, it always becomes a… Continue Reading

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As a leader, it’s OK to sound like a broken record on mission

Leaders should bang the drum on mission

Had only in passing heard of this guy Bill George before; he’s a former Medtronic CEO, apparently was high-up at Honeywell before that, and now teaches at Harvard Business School. Broadly, then, he’s quite vetted. He has a blog and… Continue Reading

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On fixing the bad first impression

Fixing Bad First Impressions

If you’re a Mad Men fan and have been watching these final couple of episodes, you may have seen the sequence last night where Mathis — basically a flack for Peggy — barges in on Don, tells him everything’s been handed to… Continue Reading

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A bad culture will cost you money (and everything)

Don't have a culture of silence at your firm

One of the most unbelievable things about work to me is that old-school, high-up-the-ladder guys always give total lip service to ideas like “culture” and “employee engagement.” I understand why on face. Those are soft, fluffy topics. They can’t immediately… Continue Reading

Fast Company on how to introduce new ideas: Completely roll over

Getting People To Listen To New Ideas

I really like Fast Company and read it a lot, although moreso the digital side and less so the paper side (if I read the print product, I’m probably on a plane somewhere). Sometimes, however, they massively whiff with the stuff they… Continue Reading

“Got a minute?” costs the U.S. economy about $588 billion a year

Interruptions and Productivity

Got that stat in the headline from here. Basically the idea speaks to the power (for evil) of interruption, which is common in most workplace cultures, I’d auger. “Hey, got a minute?” At my current job, I actually saw one of those go… Continue Reading