Did you know that as nimble as an ordinary bat is when flying it can’t take off from a level place?
If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and painfully until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then it takes off like a flash.
That’s also a good description of what happens to workers who aren’t given what they need to succeed.
Whether it’s coherent instructions, correct and complete information, additional training, viable feedback, or something else, without it they struggle to survive, let …read more

Success has as many definitions as there are people and the best ones are those that are private. You know, the ones you think about at 3 am or hug to yourself as you fall asleep at night.Most of the quotes about success follow predictable lines and there are enough to count instead of sheep if you’re having problems sleeping. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice for today, it just means I had to look a little harder to avoid boring you.Oh well, in a salute to the norm we’ll start with Harry F. Banks comment, “For success, attitude …read more

Based on reader reactions, last week’s wisdom quotes were a hit; as promised, here are the rest.
There are many wise words attributed to Chinese Proverbs and these certainly qualify, “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion.” These days, public opinion vies with “leaders” for the same followers—those who don’t want to bother thinking for themselves.
Bill Cosby has the right response to that, “A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it’s the stupid ones who need the advice.” Of course, they don’t listen, but that never stopped anyone from trying.
Following Gandhi’s teaching is a good …read more

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Southwest Airlines, like Zappos, has a corporate culture that is head and shoulders above most and is the envy of their competitors.
Southwest’s culture is so important that the company walked away from a deal to buy Frontier Air Lines.
It is that culture has helped Southwest weather the current financial storm and it zealously guards that culture because it knows it is the true foundation of its strength..
As Gary C. Kelly, Chairman, President and CEO, said in the during the Q2 Earnings Call,
“Excluding special items, we reported a second quarter profit of $59 million and that was $0.08 a share. And …read more

Last week when I was looking for Ted Kennedy quotes I ran across this one from Frank Dane, “Life is strange. Every so often a good man wins.”
I liked it so much that this week I went looking to see what else Dane said; I found other insightful comments, so tried to track down a bio on Dane—no luck.
More quotes, but nowhere could I find information on who he is or what he does.
I’m sharing the quotes anyway and if any of you know more about him please share your knowledge in the comments.
Obviously, Dane did not have a great …read more

Power is interesting—an almost tangible phenomenon.

People crave power relative to their image of themselves. What seems like a small amount to you may be enormous to another.
According to Margaret Thatcher, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
Alice Walker warns that “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Of course, a lot of people have just quit thinking, so they don’t have to worry about their power.
Francis Bacon tells us that “Knowledge is power,” but doesn’t mention that knowledge requires more than book-leaning …read more

Most managers know that lousy customer service is one of the fastest ways to reduce the bottom line.
But what most managers forget in the daily press of doing way too much with drastically reduced resources is that their employees are also their customers.
As I’ve said in the past, one of the hats every manager wears is employee service manager (ESM) and reviews are a critical part of that.
Done right, reviews are a positive experience for both manager and employee; in some cases even a time to bond.
If the goals in January were done well, which means that they had a …read more

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

If you read me often you won’t be surprised to learn that I love culture. I believe in the power of culture. I believe that good culture is the difference between great companies and the rest.
Most importantly, I know that if it’s going to succeed culture must be stain not paint.
Unfortunately, many companies use culture paint, believing they can pass it off as culture stain.
The difference is obvious, just as stain is absorbed by wood, culture stain is absorbed into the very fiber of an organization affecting everybody’s thoughts and actions.
And just as paint covers a surface masking its imperfections, …read more