Three great interviews sharing what to do and one commentary on the opposite.
Do you long for simplicity, especially in software? Jason Fried built his company 37Signals because he hates complexity. Read more about his attitudes in Inc’s excellent article, you may be surprised.
Next is the story of and an interview with Steve Chang, co-founder and chairman of Trend Micro. Learn why two failed startups didn’t dampen his entrepreneurial fire and what drives him to innovate.
I love this interview with William D. Green, chairman and C.E.O. of Accenture. He tells his first training seminar as a manager where he was told …read more

Few things are constant, but management stupidity when it comes to retention is one of them.
Before Wall Street pulled the rug out of under the economy global demographics made the need to cherish workers at all levels obvious.
Estimates of the national shortage run as high as 14 million skilled workers by 2020, according to widely cited projections by the labor economists Anthony P. Carnevale and Donna M. Desrochers.
Then came the downturn and executive retention stupidity is once again running rampant.
Two-thirds of executives at large companies were most concerned about losing Gen Y employees, while less than half of them had …read more

Now check out this truly stupid action
Please join me tomorrow for America’s Tragic Shame.
Your comments—priceless
Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL
Image credit: erix! on flickr

Hypocrisy has had a high profile on my blog this summer, especially as it relates to the emerging attitudes of young people.
One of the current hypocrisy poster boys is Senator John Ensign, who really drove home what is acceptable and not acceptable in the prevailing attitudes of those who claim the moral high ground.
The Senator, who roundly condemned then-President Clinton’s sexual peccadillo and subsequent lying to a grand jury, said, “I haven’t done anything legally wrong.” (My emphasis.)
Which mean that if Clinton had admitted screwing around with Monica Lewinsky it would have made it a “distraction” (Ensign’s term for what …read more

CEOs move markets. A look, a gesture, a word.
And what the experts recommend for them will work for you.
Forbes has an article how to control CEO rage, but the best part is the accompanying slideshow highlighting the anger of a few of the most famous and infamous—those who lied, cheated and stole their way into history.
The Washington Post calls it the “Silent Language of Leadership,” but ignore the ‘leadership’. What is described is the silent language of influencing people, whether you are a CEO, Bernie Madoff or parents struggling to get through to your teenager.
Sometimes the boss decides it’s time …read more

Today’s post is on a subject that angers me no end; it’s also a lead-in to tomorrow’s post.
I wrote about this lunacy shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn, but several recent phone calls made me go back and find the post to bring it to your attention again.
Of course, since you’re here reading this it’s likely that you’re already in agreement with me and don’t inflict this mindset on your people.
It’s about all those bosses (far more than you might imagine) who evaluate their people based on the language they use to discuss their actions as opposed to the …read more

The right protection for today.
Your comments—priceless
Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL
Image credit: maurice.heuts on flickr

Oh goody. Another CEO study. I haven’t seen the study, but David Brooks (NY Times) gives an overview (whatever you do, don’t miss the comments), while Dan McCarthy (Great Leadership laments the fascination with such studies.
I pretty much ignore them, except for their amusement value—sort of like all the food studies that tell us which food that was recommended last year will kill us this year.
Speaking of which, I wish someone would do a study like that on CEOs.
A ranking of CEOs who were lauded for x amount of time before they crashed and burned for the same traits that …read more

See how Calvin explains the economy
Your comments—priceless
Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL
Image credit: Combined Media on flickr

Sometimes it seems as if the economic crisis is acting like an earthquake that’s turning over rock after rock and all kinds of icky things are crawling out much to our dismay. A few months ago I wrote about the mindset that seems to be so prevalent these days.
“These days” aren’t all that recent whereas the executive bonuses causing so much rage are just a blip.
Enron was eight years ago as was the phen-phen settlement rip-off, although the two lawyers were only convicted this week.
For decades, the Feds have been scamster heaven and that hasn’t changed, “about 32 percent of …read more