One of the best writers on leadership is one you’ve never heard of.  If I told you a few of the titles you still wouldn’t recognize who I’m referencing.  Yet Peter Drucker, the Father of Modern Management, liked to tell his students that the reason he never wrote a book on leadership was because the first systematic book on leadership was written by Xenophon and it was still the best.  Who was Xenophon?  More about that in a moment, but the point is the best-kept leadership secrets are out in the open, and they rest in (more…)

Do you know how hard your online employees are working?  Did you say you don’t have any employees?  If you have a website, blog, Facebook page, eBay store or any other kind of online commercial presence, I suggest you do have online employees, and it would be in your interest to think of them that way.

I was coaching another consultant today who does not have a website but who said she wanted one and knew she needed one.  She’s not super-savvy on web technology, nor does she care to be.  I suggested that she think of building a website/blog as if she were hiring an employee.  Here’s how the logic works… (more…)

Earlier this year, I started back on a path to physical fitness (see personal training).  It’s been good to get back in shape and build stamina, endurance, strength, balance and more energy.  I sought out a trainer to teach me more about a system called CrossFit, which I recommend to anyone.

I was also intrigued by an article last month in the Wall Street Journal about marathoners and the impact on personal fitness.  If you have run a marathon, my congratulations to you.  If you’re a serial marathoner like the optometrist I met on the plane last month between Boise and Denver, you’ve got my respect.  For those who have run a marathon (and those who never will) and who struggle now to stay fit, read on. (more…)

How can this be?  Productivity is supposed to be a good thing.  Productivity is the measure of how much a business produces divided by the number of workers, so if productivity goes up a business should make more money.  How can this be a talent killer? (more…)

What kind of companies tend to keep top talent?  Those that pay a lot or are leaders in their field?  What about those who have an engaging culture?  Let’s take a moment to look at both of those possible answers and see what part culture plays in attracting, developing and retaining top talent. (more…)

Meltdown, bailouts, recession–the last six months have provided quite a crash course in economics for us.  There has been a lot of talk about Wall Street vs. Main Street, as if you could easily separate the two.  The truth is, you can’t.  What is needed right now is a serious capital reinvestment in the economy.  I’m not talking about infusions of cash and liquidity like the Federal Reserve has been attempting.  I’m talking about an investment in human talent. 

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The aikido dojo I train in had a significant event over the weekend.  Five of our members took a test, and I was one of them.

I won’t go into all the background here about aikido (*see the footnote below if you’re interested).  Since we don’t have competitions or tournaments in aikido, testing (and the training that leads up to that) is one of the times when we are able to assess what we have learned and how much more there is to learn.  Besides demonstrating specific techniques that are called out early on, the last part of the test involves multiple attackers coming at you from all directions and you have to effectively deal with each attack without injuring yourself or anyone else.  It is a true test of poise under pressure.

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Here’s a personal anecdote that happened to me that I think says something about talent, how we assess it and factor it into our decisions.

I’ve wanted to start working with a personal trainer for some time.  Last year I talked about it with my doctor and she made some recommendations to me.  We worked on my diet and I spent most of last year getting the nutritional picture right (my doctor has an emphasis–and expert training–on functional medicine, which is exceedingly rare to find in my experience).

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