There are people who just don’t live up to their own standards. They take on the standards of others or of the culture they immerse themselves in. Perhaps it is because they are empty and void of value. Maybe they seek to become that which they follow or haven’t learned how to stand up for… Read More
Use It or Lose It
Without clear direction established by the purpose we give ourselves, time becomes the fire in which we burn. With no drive towards something, our time and energy is used by others for their own purposes. Marketing agencies use advertisement to drive us towards their purposes. Our friends and family can use us to get things… Read More
Warm Work Relationships
What about work relationships? A friend from South Africa emailed me and asked me follow up on the recent post about “the warmth of our close relationships have more to do with our success than money or fame” After high school or college and prior to retirement we spend the majority of our lives interacting… Read More
Know Thy Biz
“Nothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under the circumstances, in other words so long as it knows its business.” The Notebooks of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIIII, Unprofessional Sermons, The Roman Empire I like this quote. It speaks of knowing what your biz is so you can live under any… Read More
Learn and Move on
There’s a couple of quotes on refrigerator magnets at home attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that directly relate to the biz of you: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new… Read More
Why delay?
“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.“ –Mark Twain If only some of our leaders could embrace this, our companies and social institutions would be better off. I know countless examples of leaders, managers or peers who want to “get it right” or “make sure they’ve looked at the options.” Wanting to make things better,… Read More
Are you a Victim of your Own Success?
As we go through life we build momentum. Our decisions and actions produce results. Those results may lead to success or failure. When we find failure, we have the opportunity to learn how to do things better and avoid those failings in the future. Provided we learn from our mistakes, we build success on our… Read More
Two Consequences of Our Decisions
A friend of mine at work brought out something he had posted on his wall years ago to post once again. He found the quote in a training package for leadership. There are some ideas that connect with us in multiple situations and times “The two most severe consequences decisions are success and failure.” -Anonymous If… Read More
What is Accountability?
In the simplest biz of you terms I can think of accountability is saying what you do and doing what you say. This taking responsibility for your actions in a manner that others can count is the basis of integrity. It is fundamental to managing the business of you as stated in a previous post… Read More
Profit comes when the job is done right.
“Profit comes when the job is done right.” This idea came up during a discussion with a friend of mine about facilitating a paradigm shift at work. When a company is focused on profit, project centricity becomes primary. This is natural as project management is critical to managing earned value in the quest to maximize… Read More
Business of You 