Leadership
It was back in the 1990s, at Versant, when my old (and dearly departed) friend Larry Pulkownik first introduced me to the phrase: Win Them Alone, Lose Them Together And its corollary: Ask for Help at the First Sign of Trouble Larry told me this rule from the sales perspective:
Leadership
I was speaking to my executive coach the other day and we had a great conversation about feedback. I'm going to adapt what she said into some pithy advice for managers on how to give feedback. Here are the three golden rules of feedback: * It has to be
Leadership
I always cringe when I hear a young parent say something like, “Hey Buddy, don’t forget your toy shovel.” I feel the same way when I hear managers call subordinates “buddy” or when I see managers who are, in general, too preoccupied with being liked. One day I wish
Leadership
Say you're an experienced executive joining a new company. When you start, you inherit a team of people. The first thing you must realize is that over time, "the team" will silently transform into "your team." Warts and all, you're going to
Leadership
“I am 100% behind my CEOs up until the day I fire them.” -- Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital I’ve always loved that Don Valentine quote although, like many great quotes, it took me a while to really understand it. In short, it means that the board of directors should either
Leadership
I can't remember when I first heard this great parable, and despite Googling around couldn't find it online [see footnote], so I thought I'd take a moment to re-tell this pointed story here. One day an employee is asked to write a proposal
Leadership
One time, back in the day at Business Objects, we were all flying back from Paris to San Francisco, when the plane pulled ten feet back from the gate and then stopped. The pilot announced that we were taking a delay of several hours. Frustrated, one of our board members,
Career
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of big-company HR practices. I’m more of the First Break all the Rules type. Despite my general skepticism of many standard practices, we still do annual performance reviews at my company, though I’m thinking seriously of dropping
Leadership
In business we have a sad tendency to copy success blindly. I remember the first time I read about this I didn't even understand what I was reading: "Nothing in business is so remarkable as the conflicting variety of success formulas offered by its numerous practitioners and
