Companies are encouraged to get ever-larger, yet is there really much evidence that big is often better? Big certainly makes a few people richer, but that's not quite the same thing. For years, indeed, Microsoft was famous for using its size to bully the reluctant into using the often...
Many years ago, I was elected president of our company’s field leadership association. Brimming with new ideas about how to make our company better, I attended a strategic planning meeting between field officers and company executives and felt my innovative contributions were dazzling. On the drive home I asked...
The Big Lies of Strategy by Roger L. Martin - You don’t need a 100-page strategic plan. Strategy is actually about making five specific choices. - THOSE WHO KNOW ME WELL know that I have a love/hate relationship with all things strategic. On the one hand, I hate ‘strategic planning’...
Winning your employees over to stick with the company long term involves an array of factors–but first among those is love. What are the real drivers of human engagement in the workplace? What are those things that consistently inspire people to fully commit themselves in their jobs and to willingly scale...
Last week Chris Atkinson was interviewed by Brett Gajda for his podcast Where There's Smoke - they discussed inspiration and engagement. The interview includes debate about where people go wrong, our misunderstandings of the topic and three techniques to inspire others.
My manager truly cared about me as a person more than he did about me as an employee. Something I saw in him and in some of the managers I had afterwards was that they really put people first.