The reality show “Bar Rescue” is in its fourth season on Spike TV. Each episode offers an opportunity for veteran food and beverage industry consultant Jon Taffer to swoop in and revive a failing bar. Usually this entails having to identify the staff’s weakest link.
The path to success is not a straight line
Productivity Bulletin: 11/21/2014
- Leave your desk at lunch:
The same point I just made in #1 is doubly true for creativity. Have you ever experienced the phenomenon of having some of your greatest ideas while in the shower? Do you think you are alone in that? You’re not. When you “free yourself up” as you do in the shower or while taking a break from your work, your brain is suddenly “free” to consider new, fresh ideas that can potentially solve the problems that were plaguing you while you were so vigorously pondering the issue. Letting your mind wander a bit over lunch can lead to new ideas and new inspiration.
- Time Assets vs. Time Debts
Good post on managing your time and identifying things that drag us down from being productive.
http://jamesclear.com/time-assets - 6 questions to ask to learn about a company’s culture:
Maybe your interviewer will mention off-site brainstorming meetings, clubs meant to help develop employees’ skills or even the company softball team. “But if they skirt this question, that tells you a lot about their culture… or lack thereof,” Cochran says.
http://lifehacker.com/six-questions-you-should-ask-to-learn-about-a-companys-1658633604
- Don’t just invent something, fix a problem:
http://99u.com/workbook/34987/dont-just-invent-something-fix-something - As we try to develop better relationships with our customers, I like this pamphlet approach for the upper levels:
http://www.seanogle.com/entrepreneurship/pamphlet-principle - Allow people choices when creating change:
Allow People Decisions. Change cannot happen to people. It needs to happen with people. Change must be co-created. Everyone should have some say in how the change is implemented. It is their job and their life. Let them have an element of control. If you keep lines of communication open for suggestions, you will hear lots of good ideas from the people who need to make the change happen. Use those ideas because it will build more engagement in the process. Create the change together.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141030174822-11290604-3-ways-to-motivate-change
PS: On in the case with my son, provide the perception of choice… - Warren Buffet on Goals: (If it isn’t the most important, avoid at all costs)
But the story nevertheless resonates because it promotes a truth that I think is vital to remember in our current networked age: spending time on lower priority goals, even though they’re helpful and generate value, can leave you worse off than if you had avoided them all together.
Video: Leaders must communicate their vision
Productivity Bulletin: 11/14/2014
- Managing talent in the age of networking:
In the networked age, the old employment model, in which employers offered lifelong employment in exchange for loyal service, is no longer affordable or desirable. Instead, companies need to foster a new kind of long-term dynamic loyalty — an alliance: a mutually beneficial deal, with explicit terms, between independent players (company and employee).
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/09/managing-talent-in-a-networked-age/
- Why Silicon Valley Works:
One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that you need to have pre-existing connections to get value from the network. Remarkably, you don’t. Silicon Valley is a community of outsiders that have come together. If you build something good, people will help you. It’s standard practice to ask people you’ve just met for help – and as long as you aren’t annoying about it, they usually don’t mind.
- The MBA bubble in Silicon Valley is bursting:
That’s according to newly released employment data from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, which is a particular bellwether of the state of startups given the school’s proximity to Silicon Valley. About 24% of MBA graduates in the class of 2014 headed to tech jobs, down from 32% in 2013 and equal with the proportion back in 2012. Of course, those profiteering graduates are returning right back to where they belong in finance and consumer products, which each saw notable upticks in employment.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/09/the-mbas-are-fleeing-should-sf-be-worried/
- Sanford University Employment Report:
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Stanford%20GSB%20Employment%20Report%202013-14.pdf - Improving your work life balance:
1. Be calm under pressure
2. Learn to manage your email
3. Boost your confidence
4. Work fewer hours
5. Get people to listen
6. Take more control of your lifehttp://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/ways-to-be-happier-at-work??src=rss