A Little Quieter Than Usual, For Now As many of you know, I’m writing a book called Startup CEO: a Field Guide to Building and Running Your Company, which is due to the publisher in a few weeks. I’d originally thought the book would be an easy project since the idea was to “turn my blog into a book.” But then it turned out that for the book I wanted to write, I’d only written about 1/3 of the content on the blog already! So the past few weeks I’ve been writing my brains out. I now have a nearly 100,000 word draft, which needs to be edited down quite a bit, charts and tables inserted, outside contributors added in….
Archives / January, 2013
How to Wow Your Manager
How to Wow Your Manager Last week, I talked about how to Wow your employees. Now I am going to discuss the converse of that – How to Wow your Manager. Why Wow your manager? Even if you are senior leader in an organization, the Wow factor is still important. What impact does a Wow have? It sends the signal that you are on top of things. Symbolism is important. It also advances the cause further and faster. Why do you want to foster Wow moments with your team? High performing teams have a lot of Wow going on. If all members of a team see Wow regularly, they are all inspired to do more sooner, better. Here are my…
How to Wow Your Employees
How to Wow Your Employees Here at Return Path we like to promote a culture of WOW and a culture of hospitality. Some of you may be asking, Why Wow your employees? The answer is, there is nothing more inspirational than showing an employee that you care about him or her as an individual. The impact a WOW has is tremendous. Being a manger is like being in a fishbowl. Everything you do is scrutinized by your team. You lead by example whether you want to or not and showing your own vulnerability/humanity has an amazing bonding effect. Why do you want to foster Wow moments with your team? High performing teams have a lot of Wow going on. If all members…
Book Short: Entrepreneurial Lessons
Book Short: Entrepreneurial Lessons The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from 42 Founders, by David Kidder, is the ultimate coffee table book for entrepreneurs and people who are interested in how they think about running their businesses. David is the author of the Intellectual Devotional series (here’s a link to one of the five or six books in the series), he’s a good friend of mine and a member of a CEO Forum that I’m in, and my major disclosure about this blog post is that I’m one of the 42 entrepreneurs David interviewed for and profiles in the book. The Startup Playbook is very different from my own book (in progress) on being a Startup CEO. Where…
Taking Stock, Part II
Taking Stock, Part II Last year, I wrote about the three questions I ask myself at the beginning of every year to make sure my career is still on track. [https://onlyonceblog.wpengine.com/2012/01/taking-stock] The questions are: Am I having fun at work? Am I learning and growing as a professional? Is my work financially rewarding enough, either in the short term or in the long term? This year, I am adding a fourth suggestion following a great conversation I had a bunch of months back with Jerry Colonna, a great CEO coach, former VC, and all around great person. Question four is: Am I having the impact I want to have on the world? This last question was probably always implicit in…