When working with a team member, it's important to gauge whether the issue they're exhibiting is fixable or not. And the question to ask, in this regard, is whether it's a values-based problem or a content-based development issue?
All in Careers
“I Love My Grudges. I Tend To Them Like Little Pets”
Letting go. It’s a hard thing to do when you feel you’ve been wronged. When you feel that you’ve given your best to someone but it hasn’t been reciprocated, or even recognized. When the trust you’ve placed in a colleague hasn’t been returned or even acknowledged.
War Stories: "I Don't Ever Want To Work With This Person Again!"
I once worked on a project with someone who I found to be very difficult to partner with. There were a number of reasons for it - part working style, part communication, part differing perspectives on the task at hand.
Is Plan B Distracting You From Plan A?
Twitter has become a bit of a guilty pleasure (and at times 'infuriator') for me. I will admit that I probably spend a bit more time on it than I should.
But every now and then, I come across a gem of a quote, such as this one:
Will You Take Your Smart Phone To Your Next Concert?
Around the turn of the year, Dave Chappelle and John Mayer (an interesting combination) played a series of shows at the Hollywood Palladium. As part of the event experience, they required their audience to put their cellphones in a special bag that could only be unlocked by a special tool located outside the performance venue.
Remembering David Bowie
The first concert I ever saw was David Bowie, during his Serious Moonlight Tour, on December 8th, 1983. Three plus decades may have accentuated some of the colors in my mind, but as I recall it, it's still one of the greatest shows I ever saw.
Why You Should Create For Yourself, Not For Anyone Else
Talib Kweli Greene wrote an article recently on Medium called In Defense of Ms. Hill. The article is, as the title suggests, about Lauryn Hill, who first rose to fame with The Fugees, and specifically about what rights and expectations we can have of her as as an artist.
Who's Writing Your Story?
One of the cool features of Facebook is On This Day, where it shows you memories of what you posted on a specific date in prior years. I came across this one from Kevin Smith that I shared last year:
The Point Of Protest...
The point of protest is to create discomfort. The point of pushing our boundaries is to break things, and, yes, to break through. The point of being different is to provoke an alternate reaction.
These discomforts, breakthroughs, reactions have a purpose. They are to topple the old order, to change our minds, to drive change.
Our Last Time...and We Never Knew It...
Yesterday, a buddy of mine shared a couple of remarkable phrases he found on Reddit:"At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and none of you knew it."
Or:
Steve Jobs, Passion and Entrepreneurship
"You have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing...because it's so hard, that if you don't, any rational person would give up...the ones that were successful, loved what they did, so they could persevere...and the ones that didn't love it, quit, because they're sane!"
Don’t Tolerate Rotten Beans
When you’re cooking a dish, it makes sense to have the best individual ingredients possible. It’s fair to say that the better the ingredients, the better the end product.
If you don’t, you’re putting the entire meal at risk. Not just the taste of it, but the entire experience (during and after).
"Do What You Can't"
There's a whole new world out there where everything that we took for granted over the last 10, 20, 30 years is now being democratized. Access to money, technology, infrastructure, is a non-issue. You just need a good idea. And the balls to go do it.
When Dylan Went Electric
On July 25th, 1965, Bob Dylan went onstage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in his electric guitar and played the chords to "Maggie's Farm". The audience, who had come to see an acoustic poet, the folk voice of the generation, were caught by surprise.
Companies Are Marathons Not Sprints
I was at a conference recently and one of the speakers was sharing the story of how he built his firm - an organization he grew over a number of years, one that he ultimately sold for over a Billion dollars.
So You 'Made' It. Is That It?
We put a lot of work into achieving our goals and getting ourselves to where we want to be, whether in our relationships, our ventures or our careers.
Tom Peters: A Business School Without Wall Street or Consulting?
It's a crazy idea, one that's quite difficult, if not impossible, to implement. (And, many might argue, not desirable, either.) But like a lot of Tom Peters' ideas, it's provocative.
"Your Ideas Have All Been Stolen Already"
There are a number of writers and thinkers I look to on a regular basis for ideas, inspiration and insight, and Seth Godin is one of them. For many years, now, he has upended my view of what is important, what we should value and what we should focus on. It was his writing that got me started with my own blog.
Don't Stop Playing...
Isn't that the truth?
Lets not lose our minds in the race to maturity, responsibility and so-called growth.