This weekend I finally succumb to the pressure from my two boys to build a tree house in the woods. We picked out three trees and headed to Home Depot to purchase the needed supplies; $200 and 12 hours later we had an almost functional tree house. What was missing you ask; the ladder. I was shooting for the basic step ladder but the boys wanted a rope ladder. Why? Because you can pull the ladder up into the tree house when girls come over. Ah, I should have seen that one coming based on the n ...
It seems as if it was 20 years ago when I was working for a company that was outsourcing the pension and 401k management. After reviewing several options, we selected Vanguard Mutual Fund Group and a few of us traveled up to see the home office. Mr. Bogle named the company after Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of the Nile. The environment was really cool and they took this idea of war ships to an incredible level. Even the buildings were positioned as if they were in attack mode. The emp ...
A friend sent me this article on leadership and although I don't do this too often I thought it was worth a copy and paste. The article was written in 2001 by Colonel James E. Moschgat, Commander of the 12th Operations Group, 12th Flying Training Wing, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.
William "Bill" Crawford certainly was an unimpressive figure, one you could easily overlook during a hectic day at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Crawford, as most of us referred to him back in the late ...
Another survey and another set of results that reveal another blinding flash of the obvious. We don't collaborate very well and the question that needs to be asked is did you need a survey to tell you that? What we might not understand is what exactly collaboration is and what it is not. Ask yourself or your manager if you collaborate with others? The problem with this question is that it is like you wife asking your if you like her new dress. There is only one safe and secure answer to ...
Company are using a form of information market systems to rank, rate, and select ideas. Our own group is implementing something similar and everyone knows about the corporate Patent program. Where do folks come up with these new ideas? Do they just come from out of the blue in a flash of lightning? Are new ideas really one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration? Well, here are a few ideas on how to generate new ideas.
First thing is obvious is to look for a problem that ...
What would happen if your company came into possession of thousands of Violins? Some of these violins were Stradivarius while others were worth $5 and could be bought off eBay. How would or should the company distribute the violins? How would you decide if you were in charge?
Should the violins be distributed based on positional power? The chairman and his direct reports get the Stradivarius while you and I get a box with strings attached? This seems fair based on our classic org ...
Over the past few months, I have had a couple of things taken from my desk here at AT&T. The first is loose change that I had sitting in a little cup. The funny thing was the trail of coins running down the hallway which I wondered if I followed would I find Hansel and Gretel sitting in some cube counting the stolen loot. As someone that usually over analyzes things, I wondered how much they could have taken if they pulled a Johnny Cash and took "One Piece at a Time":
"I'v ...
