Familiarity
I coach people all over the world and we all adjust for the time zones. I've found that I'm far more comfortable and effective having visited others' countries at some point. I know what the surroundings are like, the food
Filtering
During an "open house" at my kids' school on evening (do they still have these?) the fourth grade teacher, who must have been 24-years-old, said, "Here's the deal: If you don't believe what your kids tell you about me, I
Agility in Volatile Times
When I was doing primarily corporate consulting work, I learned that 3M had policy of a majority of its profits each year originating from products that hadn't existed five years ago. I thought that was astounding. Today, two-thirds of my profits
Coffee, Cause, and Coincidence
The owner of the local coffee shop has never been able to master the modern cash register he purchased about a year ago when the old one broke down. He simply charges me a round number, like $4, and tucks
Publishing Observations
Using someone else's quote at the beginning of each chapter makes it appear that your points require an expert's credibility, which you don't have. If your book has no index, it's obviously self-published, and not with much care. Dozens of testimonials are,
You Have Some ‘Splainin’ to Do, Lucy
Early in our marriage my wife and a friend ran a little business creating custom workout and running clothes. They would personalize the clothing with sayings, stitching, baubles, and so forth. They even did sneakers. I didn't pay much attention. One
Time Is On My Side
There are three key approaches to creating more discretionary time for yourself and decreasing labor intensity: Streamline your models. You may have been doing something extremely well for years with excellent results, but that's no reason not to try to
True Risk Management
People make decisions without the "if/then" dynamic in mind. They are happy to vote for investment in public school improvements, or infrastructure, or tourist campaigns. But if the proposition were, "If you approve $100 million in school facility improvements, it will mean
Pay for Quality and Expect Quality
If you're spending time obsessively checking the quality of the work of subcontractors, or looking into the legitimacy of their expense reports, or answering question that they should already know the answers to: Get new subcontractors. (And the same for
RFP
One of my clients asked for my help gaining a sole-source recognition with a government agency which has asked if she'd bid on an RFP (request for proposal). RFPs are terrible devices, produced and evaluated by low-level people who then