Book Short: Awesome Title, So-So Book Strategy and the Fat Smoker (book, Kindle), by David Maister, was a book that had me completely riveted in the first few chapters, then completely lost me for the rest. That was a shame. It might be worth reading it just for the beginning, though I’m not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend the purchase just for that. The concept (as well as the title) is fantastic. As the author says in the first words of the introduction: We often (or even usually) know what we should be doing in both personal and professional life. We also know why we should be doing it and (often) how to do it. Figuring all that out is…
Archives / March, 2012
What Separates Good Teams from Bad Teams?
What Separates Good Teams from Bad Teams? Every once in a while, I have a conversation that forces me to distill an idea to a sound bite – those frequently become blog posts. Many happen with members of my team at Return Path, or my friend Matt on our Saturday morning runs, or my Dad or Mom, or Mariquita. This one happened at dinner the other night with Mariquita and my in-laws Rick and Carmen. The subject came up about managing a senior team, and different iterations of teams I’ve managed over the years. And the specific question we posed was “What are the most significant characteristics that separate good teams from bad teams?” Here’s where the conversation went…“I believe…
Canary in a Coal Mine
Canary in a Coal Mine From Wiktionary: An allusion to caged canaries mining workers would carry down into the tunnels with them. If dangerous gases such as methane or carbon monoxide leaked into the mine-shaft, the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners. Perhaps not the best analogy in the world, but I had an observation recently as we took on a massive new client: over the years, Return Path has had a handful of “bellwether” clients that I’ve jokingly referred to as the canaries in our proverbial coal mine. In the really early days of the business, it was eBay. When we first started working with Email Service Providers, it was the old DoubleClick. A couple years…
People Should Come with an Instruction Manual
People Should Come with an Instruction Manual Almost any time we humans buy or rent a big-ticket item, the item comes with an instruction manual. Why are people any different? No one is perfect. We all have faults and issues. We all have personal and professional development plans. And most of those things are LONG-TERM and surface in one form or another in every single performance review or 360 we receive over the years. So shouldn’t we, when we enter into a long-term personal or professional employment relationship, just present our development plans as instruction manuals on how to best work with, live with, manage, us? The traditional interview process, and even reference check questions around weaknesses tend to be…
Book Short (and great concept): Moments of Truth
Book Short (and great concept): Moments of Truth TouchPoints: Creating Powerdul Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments, by Douglas Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup Corporation, and Mette Norgaard (book, kindle), is a very good nugget of an idea wrapped in lots of other good, though only loosely connected management advice around self awareness and communication — something I’m increasingly finding in business books these days. It’s a very short book. I read it on the Kindle, so I don’t know how many pages it is or the size of the font, but it was only 2900 kindles (or whatever you call a unit on the device) and only took a few Metro North train rides to finish. It’s…