Book Short: Vulnerability Applied to Leadership Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (book, Kindle), is Patrick Lencion’s latest fable-on-the-go book, and it’s as good a read as all of his books (see list of the ones I’ve read and reviewed at the end of the post). The book talks about the power of vulnerability as a character trait for those who provide service to clients in that they are rewarded with levels of client loyalty and intimacy. Besides cringing as I remembered my own personal experience as an overpaid and underqualified 21 year old analyst at how ridiculous some aspects of the management consulting industry are…the book really made me think. The challenge to…
Archives / January, 2011
Book Short: Calm in a Crisis, Explained
Book Short: Calm in a Crisis, Explained Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales, is not a business book. Even though the author says a few times “this can be applied to business, too,” the application is left 100% up to the reader. But that’s my only criticism of the book, and it’s not a big one at that. Deep Survival is an unexpected and somewhat odd way to think about how to lead an organization, but it’s very powerful, and incredibly well written. The author essentially has made a career, or at least a hobby, of studying major accidents and delineating the qualities that separate those who survive from those who don’t. Most of his…
What a View, Part III
What a View, Part III We are in the middle of our not-quite-annual senior team 360 review process this week at Return Path. It’s particularly grueling for me and Angela, our SVP of People, to sit in, facilitate, and participate in 15 of them in such a short period of time, but boy is it worth it! I’ve written about this process before — here are two of the main posts (overall process, process for my review in particular, and a later year’s update on a process change and unintended consequences of that process change). I’ve also posted my development plans publicly, which I’ll do next month when I finalize it. This year, I’ve noticed two consistent themes in my…
5 Ways to Spot Trends That Will Make You (and Your Business) More Successful
5 Ways to Spot Trends That Will Make You (and Your Business) More Successful I’ve recently started writing a column for The Magill Report, the new venture by Ken Magill, previously of Direct magazine and even more previously DMNews. Ken has been covering email for a long time and is one of the smartest journalists I know in this space. My column, which I share with my colleagues Jack Sinclair and George Bilbrey, covers how to approach the business of email marketing, thoughts on the future of email and other digital technologies, and more general articles on company-building in the online industry – all from the perspective of an entrepreneur. Below is a re-post of this week’s version, which I…
Macroeconomics for Startups
Macroeconomics for Startups I’m not an economist. I don’t play one on TV. In fact, I only took one Econ class at Princeton (taught by Ben Bernanke, no less), and I barely passed it. In any case, while I’m not an economist, I do read The Economist, religiously at that, and I’ve been reading so much about macroeconomic policies and news the past 18 months that I feel like I finally have a decent rudimentary grip on the subject. But still, the subject doesn’t always translate as well to the average entrepreneur as microeconomics does – most business people have good intuitive understandings of supply, demand, and pricing. But who knows what monetary policy is and why they should care?…