The Future of Entrepreneurship in America
I noticed something strange while sitting on my front porch today: A professional landscaping crew of seven had descended on my cul-de-sac to industriously cut the lawns and trim the bushes at my home and the homes of my neighbors on either side.
While this same event happens twice [...]
Filed in Digression, Leadership Observations 5 Comments so far
Sometimes You Have to be a Prick to Those Outside of Your Company
I just received the March 2009 purchase report from one of our company’s 50+ vendors who provide such recaps. This particular vendor chose to name the file MyCompanyMarch.xls. By “MyCompanyMarch,” I mean he put the name of my company and the month in [...]
Filed in Business Situations, Digression, Leadership Observations, Management Training No Responses yet
Lessons on Leadership and Humanity from Arne Duncan
As we wrote last month in our post about local school administrators: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become administrators.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is the administrator of all administrators.
On Tuesday, Secretary Duncan was in Denver proclaiming that American children [...]
Filed in Digression, Leadership News and Views 2 Comments so far
If You Want the Swindlers, Get Their Accountants
“If you want the Mafia, get their lawyers,” explains Mitchell McDeere, formerly of Bendini, Lambert and Locke.
I think we’re missing the real villains in the Bernard Madoff affair. Madoff, in case you’ve been under a rock for the last few months, is the 70-year old investment fund [...]
Filed in Business Situations, Digression One Response so far
Leadership Lessons from Snow Days in Georgia
(My apologies as I get a little local here, but this stuff really ticks me off.)
It snowed in Georgia yesterday; this is news. Some towns, like Athens, received as much as six inches of snow. Gwinnett County, Georgia (north of Atlanta) got a little more than an inch. To [...]
Filed in Business Situations, Digression, Leadership Observations, Management One Response so far
Skynet is Here, and the Nerds are at the Controls
(Terminator fans can probably skip the next two paragraphs, as they’re just an explanation of the havoc we can expect in our not-too-distant future.)
Skynet, for the uninformed, is a computer-based defense system, created by nerds working for the U.S. military in the 1990s. Long story short, [...]
Filed in Business Situations, Digression, Leadership No Responses yet
The Stimulus, Obama and Leadership
Eight Hundred Billion Dollars. $800,000,000,000.00. That’s a lot of money. When combined with the $700,000,000,000.00 squandered by or scheduled to be squandered by the Troubled Asset Relief Project (TARP), we’re talking about one and a half trillion dollars. In round numbers, $1.5 trillion looks like this: $1,500,000,000,000.00.
Hard to fathom, really. To [...]
Filed in Digression, Leadership News and Views No Responses yet
Leadership Lessons from Google – When a Giant Makes a Giant Mistake
Google announced last week that they would close three offices and lay off 100 full-time recruiters. Even though these are the first Google-hired employees ever to lose their jobs in a workforce reduction, it’s not news… not in this economy. In fact, 100 employees [...]
Filed in Business Situations, Digression, Leadership Observations One Response so far
