Perspectives
Are you failing to plan or planning to fail?
Or could it be that you're failing at planning? According to recent studies, between 70% and 90% of organizations that have formulated strategies fail to execute them. A Fortune Magazine study has shown that 7 out of 10 CEOs who fail do so not because of bad strategy,...
The Ant and the Grasshopper
By now you should have set your goals for the year. Time to figure out a plan for how you're going to achieve them. In case you need reminding, I've gone back to Aesop's Fables. In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its...
Happy New Year!
Yes I know it is a few days late but I suspect that people are only now getting back to work in earnest. I wanted to start the new year by telling a story of a friend's father, a man who is 88 years old. My friend will often go over to his father's place and find he...
Oh, oh! I’ve been disengaged!
I've noticed that I haven't been posting as many blogs as I should in the last few weeks. I'm obviously disengaged. For some reason in Canada, the "end of year holiday season" (formerly known as Christmas) has grown longer and longer every year. Just like in the...
Are your co-workers just good enough?
It's hard to soar with the eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys. Do you have a passion for quality, in product, process, or people? If you don't then why not? Is it because you don't really care about your company's mission, you're turned off by a boss who doesn't...
Value Proposition
For the last ninety days I've been out talking to people about how Material Minds can help them. I've talked to more than 60 people in that time and in the process, finally developed a value proposition that I think will work. You can check what I ended up with on our...
Is planning really useful?
If you read anything on goal setting it will say that after you establish some goals you'll need to make a plan. But if you look back over your life to date, can you name five really significant things that you accomplished as a result of a detailed plan? I suspect...
Do you Drop or do you Squeeze?
So you're sitting at your desk at 7:30 some night, struggling to finish yet another project, answer one too many emails, and deal with just one more emergency when the boss drops by to hand you something more to do. Merde. You have no more time. you're scrambling to...
Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints
Those are the days you need goals. In the world of motivational speakers there is a story that is often told about Goal Setting. According to this story, in 1953, researchers at Yale University (the story sometimes is about Harvard in 1979) surveyed the graduating...