Tag: Leadership
What Did I Do?
“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…”
Great lessons by Zig Ziglar
Zig Ziglar was one of the greatest sales people that ever lived! What made him great wasn’t his ability to close a deal but rather his ability connect with those that he was making a deal with. After a successful career in Sales, he went on to becoming a widely recognized author and motivational speaker. Unfortunately, he passed away last week but his lessons will leave an indelible mark in history.
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…
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.
The Trio of Trust
At the foundation of any real relationship, whether personal or professional, is trust. In fact, a relationship itself cannot sustain or survive without it. Imagine asking a friend for a favor and not trusting in the fact that they would actually deliver – what’s the point of asking in the first place? Or, in a business transaction, when you verbally agree upon terms – if you don’t trust the other party to honor their commitment, why would you want to do business with them? It’s a pretty straightforward concept to get your head around.
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