Perspectives
April Fool’s Day
You may have celebrated April Fool's Day your whole life but did you know that it was originally in March and officially proclaimed to be on April 1st by King Richard the 2nd of England? Bear with me here. King Richard had a court clerk by the name of Chauntecleer, a...
How to deal with a selfish boss
So my little test with a Twitter poll got a few responses and although not enough for scientific conclusions, did show that 63% of respondents did agree that their boss was either mostly or totally selfish. But this is actually a good thing. Think of it this way. If...
Employees Prefer Selfish Leaders – What?
I'm really getting interested in this selfishness conundrum. The problem appears to be that companies do better with selfless leaders (better employee engagement) but end up promoting selfish ones to leadership jobs. It goes even farther when you look at what...
The Selfishness Conundrum
Think quickly. Is it better for your career to be selfish or to be selfless? Most leadership programs advocate selflessness and meeting the needs of your employees as a way to succeed but does that always work? Does selfishness make you a better leader, taking the...
The Seventies
Imagine as you leave work tonight that you're living in the seventies. You clean off your desk, tidy your office and turn off the lights. That's it. When you get back to work on Monday morning, your work would be exactly as you left it. There would be no mail waiting...
Measuring Results at Charities
A while ago I wrote a post on Evidence Based Management. It's great to see that charitable foundations are also using these techniques to make funding decisions. The following story comes from Macleans. "Stern offers up an example from the early years of the Bill and...
Should bosses tell the truth all the time?
Well you wouldn't want to work for someone who lies all the time but how about if you knew they lied just some of the time? Does that mean you would only trust them some of the time? And what times would you know you're supposed to trust them? I'm not sure that we...
Software Industry Productivity Climbing
Leadership is about getting results so it's nice to be able to see an industry mature and the growing leadership skills begin to bring better results and in particular, better productivity. Foosball and free food still exist but long gone are the days of mindless...
The Perfect Boss
This may sound like a fairy tale but Axel Zein does a good job of talking about the Perfect Boss in his recent TED Talk which I thought you might enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFG7jqJXbno