April 22, 2010

Some of my very favorite examples of what to do come from examples of the worst not to do.

I well remember flying into Phoenix to meet with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for the first time.  After the usual pleasantries we sat down at a table, he grabbed my right forearm tightly, shoved his face close to mine and hissed, I want to kill them.  I want to kill them all and I want you to deliver that message.

He was talking about his employees.

I looked him straight in the eye and said,

December 22, 2009

There are two laws I really like:  the first, Murphy’s Law says, If anything can go wrong, it will.  You can bank on that.  The other, Bardwick’s Law of Entitlement  says, What ever people get for free stops being a delight and very quickly becomes an entitlement. 

I recently had two experiences, one right after the other, in which people weren’t grateful for what they received for the simple reason they didn’t have the information that would make them appreciate what they were getting.

August 15, 2008

In many studies in many countries over the last five years, CEOs have declared their single biggest problem is employees.  It’s hard to know from the data what “biggest problem” means:  is it recruitment, retention, morale, satisfaction, skill sets, leadership style…or my current personal favorite commitment and engagement?  We don’t know.

But we do know that the great majority of CEOs are not turning to their Human Resources Department for help.  Wow.

July 17, 2008

Senator Phil Gramm, you’ve taken a lot of flack this week about the comments you made on July 9^th to the Washington Times.  You called us a nation of “whiners” who suffer from a non-existent “mental recession.”  Well, while you’ve got the mood right,  you’ve also got a case of hoof-in-mouth disease.

There are two laws I really like:  the first, Murphy’s Law says, If anything can go wrong, it will.  You can bank on that.  The other, Bardwick’s Law of Entitlement says, What ever people get for free stops being a delight and very quickly becomes an entitlement.