“If you are faced with a problem and you do not ask yourself what your role was in arriving to the problem, you are fundamentally doing yourself a disservice…”
Tag: decision making
Our Role…
Be Forgetful!
As I get, “wiser”, I realize that life really is a journey. For some, the journey is amazing and beyond what most imagine possible. Did Bill Gates ever think he was going to be the richest man in the world? Did Ernest Duchesne (and subsequently, Alexander Fleming) realize that when they discovered (and re-discovered) penicillin that it would change the lives of billions of people?
Unfortunately, for the other 99%, this journey is in a state of constant flux – not necessarily because of our environment, but rather, our thoughts and choices. Many of us wake up and habitually fall into our personal “rat race” and in that race, we dwell on the past, we wonder what our life would have been had we made different choices, and we unintentionally live a life not of significance.
We can, thankfully, change our lives immediately!
Back to Basics…
Back to basics has to be one of my all time favorite expressions in today’s business, and even, political jargon.
It’s beautiful! Things aren’t going the way you’d hoped and along comes a knight in shining armor who proclaims with utmost certainty – “We will get through this time! We will go back to basics and restore ourselves to greatness!” Tell me that image doesn’t conjure up Camelot and everything that’s right in this word?
Great Expectations…?
Words – in today’s vocabulary, are more powerful than they have ever been in our existence. Simple letters assembled together have the ability to make you feel like you are on top of the world; or, they can serve as a guillotine and do irreparable damage.
Depending on your intent, words can be used as a tool and if utilized wisely, could lead to one achieving the result they so seek. Knowing this, the responsibility to learn and choose words carefully, is great and often not treated with the respect it so deserves.
To MBA or Not To MBA? Part II
So what is the “hidden” value of an MBA program? My hint, in my previous post said, “it has nothing to do with education”.
Let’s try to look at this objectively. As part of an MBA curriculum, a student is required to learn the core functions of a business. Now, depending on the program itself, a student can specialize in a particular subject (e.g. finance), but generally speaking, the program will still need to cover other topics including, but not limited to, HR, Marketing, Finance, Ethics, Economics, and Strategy thereby providing the student with a broad knowledge base needed to operate a company. So, regardless of whether you go to Columbia, Berkeley, Stanford, or Pepperdine, you’re going to have to learn the same topics.
The Value of your Word
How much is your “word” worth? Well, I think in order to assign a value, tangible or otherwise, we must first understand what is being asked. Keeping your word, in essence, is making a promise to do something and, when you don’t live up to your word, you are in effect, breaking your promise. It’s really that simple…
NABC
In business, as in life, you come across many situations where you find yourself needing to address an issue of some sort. The challenge, often, is that many of us do not take a holistic approach towards dissecting the condition and applying a logical framework to move us towards resolution.
This is the concept behind the acronym N-A-B-C.
Now, before you can apply NABC, you have to implicitly clear on the problem you are trying to solve. Then, and only then, can you begin to apply the framework outlined below.
Life’s Resets…
If there is one thing that I have come to learn, accept, and expect throughout my life, it’s that, whether in a personal or professional capacity, people will experience what I call, “life’s resets”. In fact, people will experience many of them and in some cases cause them. Basically – this is something that throws your whole world upside down – a S.E.E. (significant emotional experience), if you will. Often, these are things that you cannot prepare for. As one of my favorite song lyrics go, “The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”
The First 90 Days (on a new job)
The number one question on everyone’s mind, including those running in the current GOP election, is “When will the economy get back on track?” Of course, for the average citizen, the implication behind this question is “When will the unemployment rate reduce?” (i.e. when can I expect to find a job?).
Keeping this on a positive note, let’s assume that you have been one of the lucky few to actually get noticed and have embarked upon the interview process. As I’ve stated before in other posts, this, to no one’s surprise, is an employer’s market (with a few exceptions, of course). That said, employer’s are cognizant of the fact that there is an abundance of talent available and will heavily scrutinize anyone trying to secure a position within their organization.
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