Corporate Curmudgeon

Quality of facilities is taken personally
"To do is to be." – Descartes "To be is to do." – Voltaire "Do be do be do." – Sinatra – Men's room graffiti (Boston Globe, 12 a.m.)

Cannibalistic butterflies in the job market
"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." - John Maynard Keynes (Boston Globe, 3/16/08)

Escaping from the career cul-de-sac
"Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings." - Arthur Rubinstein (Boston Globe, 3/9/08)

The idea-killing machine
Old joke: "Where do you find a dog with no legs? Right where you left it." (Boston Globe, 3/2/08)

'Premiumization' and other trends
"Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, bullying, travel, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure." - Joseph Heller (Boston Globe, 2/24/08)

When it comes to hiring, 50 is the new 25
"I'm 63 years old . . . but that's just 17 Celsius." - George Carlin (now 70) (Boston Globe, 2/17/08)

A noncommissioned sales force? You're crazy
"Put not your trust in money; put your money in trust." - Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston Globe, 2/10/08)

Restrooms reveal a lot about a company
A conversation between a hotel owner and his just-arrived guest, from the BBC series "Fawlty Towers," a sitcom set in Torquay, England: (Boston Globe, 2/3/08)

Public relations' toughest challenge
Public relations execs mull the pros and cons of taking on former NFL quarterback Michael Vick as a client. (Boston Globe, 1/27/08)

Love your customers or get a new business
"If I don't know what I want, I want to be bothered. If I do know what I want, I don't want to be bothered." (Boston Globe, 1/20/08)

Book well-deserving of the double flush
"A study in The Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: 'Duh.' " – Conan O'Brien (Boston Globe, 1/13/08)

Enthusiasm is about making changes
"Why wouldn't a company want to approach any important audience with all the excitement of a Billy Graham crusade?" - James Kilts (Boston Globe, 1/6/08)

For doctors, good medicine is good for business
"My doctor is nice; every time I see him, I'm ashamed of what I think of doctors in general." – Mignon McLaughlin (Boston Globe, 12/16/07)

The new (dis)organization
"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world." - John LeCarre (Boston Globe, 12/9/07)

Mastering the art of differentiation
"There is eloquence in true enthusiasm." - Edgar Allen Poe (Boston Globe, 12/2/07)

The economic conspiracy theory
Individuals must figure out what businesses have always understood: The real money goes to those who can get around the pressures of competition, to monopoly power. (Boston Globe, 11/25/07)

The new leadership: buying wiggle room
How is it that morale and faith in management would move in opposite directions? Well, maybe there's no reason those two things should be positively correlated. (Boston Globe, 11/18/07)

From pigeons to chief executives
Lee Iacocca calls his latest book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" Well, Lee, they're working. And don't you bother them. (Boston Globe, 11/11/07)

The secret of the law of attraction
One man found a way to turn his two loves – baseball and Italy – into the job of his dreams, and not just by the power of positive thinking. (Boston Globe, 11/4/07)

How to talk to a chief executive
Having gotten to observe many executives, I know that being part of genuine conversations can be difficult for them. The people they meet are often busy trying to be impressive, and people trying to be impressive tend to be sycophants. (Boston Globe, 10/28/07)

Surprising, isn't it?
"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and then cross it deliberately." - George Carlin (Boston Globe, 10/21/07)

Look past stereotypes and find common values
"Like my father, I, too, was born in Central America - Nebraska." - Carlos Mencia (who, by the way, was born Ned Arnel Mencia, in Honduras) (Boston Globe, 10/14/07)

Don't clothe yourself in pettiness, it never looks good
JEEVES: The tie, if I might suggest it, sir, a shade more tightly knotted. One aims at the perfect butterfly effect. If you will permit me - (Boston Globe, 10/7/07)

In praise of bridge-burners
There aren't too many principles of proper business conduct with which just about everybody will agree. Two come to mind. (Boston Globe, 09/30/07)

Learning, thinking the 'everyday enigma' way
Experience gives the best way to learn, but a typical classroom is an experience-deprivation chamber. (Boston Globe, 09/23/07)

Two jerks and the trifecta of 'crat
Lessons from the story of a pair of aristocrats turned autocratic military bureaucrats, bumbling about in the Crimean War. (Boston Globe, 09/16/07)

Fragile careers and lessons learned
An encounter with a man who lost his job and his home shows how fragile careers can be. (Boston Globe, 09/09/07)

Merely wanting to win is never enough
The ghost of Vince Lombardi stopped by my office yesterday. That's right. He still had the cigar. (Boston Globe, 09/02/07)

The great lesson of true leadership
How does it happen that a company's morale and performance move in opposite directions? I've experienced it once, early in my career. (Boston Globe, 08/26/07)

Taking a year off -- imagine the possibilities
Picture yourself taking a year off from work. Picture it as a paid leave, a sabbatical, like a professor. Now, picture that you're taking a year off because you got laid off. (Boston Globe, 08/19/07)

Eccentric geniuses worth the trouble they cause
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." - William James (Boston Globe, 08/12/07)

'Seen-it-all' attitude can lead to arrogance
f you follow financial news, you've heard of the "inverted yield curve," which is...well, who cares what it is. Let's jump forward to something new and much more relevant: the inverted learning curve.(Boston Globe, 8/05/07)

Imagining what can go right
Sitting in JFK Airport in New York, a father and teenager carried on a New Yorkerly loud conversation about the Wii video game system (that's the one where you swing around the controller). (Boston Globe, 7/29/07)

Good managers trust employees to do their jobs
There's a television commercial I keep seeing that has me befuddled. Maybe you've seen this thing. It's for some cellphone walkie-talkie. A standard corporate employee is at his desk when a second employee asks how some assignment is coming along. (Boston Globe, 7/22/07)

Of interviews and outer-views
This year, there will be 5 million to 6 million people who will leave their jobs. There also will be about the same number of auto accidents. Thinking about all those accidents, I started wondering this: What do all the people who cause auto accidents have in common? (Boston Globe, 7/15/07)

Fewer policies is the best policy
So, when it comes to policies, the fewer the better. But as soon as you have one, you have to add this one above it: It's our policy to assume that all policies are screwed up. (Boston Globe, 7/08/07)

Attitude isn't everything, it's competence that matters
A lot of things trump attitude. Think of all the ways you can end this sentence: "The people who work there all had great attitudes, but __________." (Boston Globe, 7/01/07)

Leaving out the welcome back mat
Picture yourself quitting your job. You walk into the boss's office and announce that you're leaving. I can tell you what your boss will say: "I'm sorry to hear it." (Boston Globe, 6/24/07)

Finding the break behind the break
When you read the typical success story, the action starts with a "break," often a fluke involving the right time and place. But look a bit deeper and you find the break before the break. (Boston Globe, 6/17/07)

Economists miss the boat in ignoring globalization's impact
If you do much of your work on a computer, whether working at home or in an office, you might feel that you're part of the economic avant-garde. (Boston Globe, 06/10/07)

Want to measure your success? Take a look back
"What age are you going to die?" That's how Dan Sullivan, the founder of the consulting firm The Strategic Coach, opens his first goal-setting session with entrepreneurs. (Boston Globe, 06/03/07)

Young workers have plenty to complain about
Yes, it's true, boomers were given America at its best, gloriously alone in economic power, and what was our contribution? So far we have sucked the silver right off the spoon. (Boston Globe, 05/27/07)

We follow the crowd, even if we don't know it
What IS a lemming? Turns out, it's a hamster with a lousy public-relations representative. Lemmings are cute little guys . . . OK, rodents, but they're the cuddly looking kind. (Boston Globe, 5/20/07)

In the future, what's uncool will become cool again
Don't you wish that more things came with expiration dates? Corporate vice presidencies, for one. You'd just replace a VP after, say, 24 months, and you wouldn't have to keep sniffing. (Boston Globe, 05/13/07)

Inside the brain of a genius lies lessons on generating and implementing ideas
In the documentary film "The Sketches of Frank Gehry," out on DVD, we get to learn how a genius works like Gehry. (Boston Globe, 05/06/07)

If you act like a jerk, at least acknowledge it
What I'm getting to here is "the accidental jerk." The chief culprits are managers, and only recently have I come to admit that I am guilty of being one of them. (Globe, 04/29/07)

'Trust the universe to reward the inner game,' coach advises
Relax, it'll all work out. The universe is taking care of everything. Let it go. Let it be. Let it happen. Isn't that a wonderful philosophy? (Boston Globe, 04/22/07)

A true pro can 'yes' an innovation to death
Old-school bureaucracy was about saying no. The motto back then was "Management isn't what you know, it's what you no." (Boston Globe, 4/08/07)

Stress can stifle, but pressure gives purpose
Self-finishers are the ones who take on the deadlines and the potholes in the blue sky, the ones who smile at the pressure, knowing that it's a privilege. (Boston Globe, 4/01/07)

Today's work ethic just no longer works
The work ethic is dead. Younger generations in the workforce have killed it off. If you're under 30, "work" has a different meaning than it did. (Boston Globe, 3/25/07)

Need to reignite passion? Permission granted
Don't you admire those people who have always known what they were meant to do and are doing it? No second-guessing. (Boston Globe, 3/18/07)

Disappointment can have shades of success
What got me thinking about the wisdom of disappointments was a story from the book "The Nature of Leadership," by Joe White. (Boston Globe, 3/11/07)

A brand's life is tied to the emotion it evokes
It comes down to a simple formula, that a "brand" is not just what you know about a product, but also how you feel about what you know. (Boston Globe, 3/04/07)

Best teachers inspire pupils to learn
While bored, your mind is elsewhere, scattered and meandering, and thus unavailable for learning that requires thinking. (Boston Globe, 2/25/07)

Film is a study for CEOs in how-not-to
If you're at Blockbuster, then I have a movie suggestion for you: "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen." (Boston Globe, 2/18/07)

Creating flawless products no one wants
Today we meet another executive at Mundane Industries, our head of Quality Management, Donald "Zero" Difetto. (Boston Globe, 2/11/07)

A new word for the old boss: impedership
The wise executive understands this basic principle: You got no followers, you got no leaders. (Boston Globe, 2/04/07)

The best leaders foment mutual respect
One of the most telling of organizational status symbols is the office door. (Boston Globe, 1/28/07)

The pursuit of quality pays off for the boss and his workers
You can have fun working on Popsicle-stick houses, while workmanship is about skill and the satisfaction of creating something first-rate. (Boston Globe, 01/21/07)

Firing can be the offense
Both boss, worker could benefit from discussing what went awry. (Boston Globe, 1/14/07)

How to be the Golden One
Author offers advice on getting to the head of the bonus line. (Boston Globe, 1/07/07)

Leaders help themselves by helping others
Today we encounter a pair of Great Moments in Management, both arising as a result of a book I read by mistake. (Boston Globe, 12/31/06)

Loyalty to individuals is fine, but what about the team?
Is loyalty making a comeback? I don't think so. Corporate loyalty rests undisturbed in its tomb; but individual loyalty survived all along. (Boston Globe, 10/22/06)

Perception bends to strains of paradigm jazz
You get a choice of being better than someone lousy or better than someone good. The choice rarely comes down to a lie versus a truth. (Boston Globe, 10/15/06)

Would you rather be Steve or Bill?
Here's a question: Who would you rather be, Bill or Steve? Here's a more general question: Would you rather be the farmer or the explorer? (Boston Globe, 10/08/06)

Great bosses don't manage, they lead
No one wants to be managed, so stop doing it. Management is boring. (Boston Globe, 10/01/06)

If the manager's good, any tool can help
The folks in H.R. are trying to change their image again, so look for your Human Resources group to start calling itself Human Capital. (Boston Globe, 9/24/06)

Experimentists inspire change
The best bosses in America are eager to try something new. Not just meet, not just plan, not just envision -- but to make something happen. (Boston Globe, 9/17/2006)

New challenges make the working easier
The difference between working on a 16th-century galley ship and working in the modern cubicle is that the oar is replaced by a keyboard. (Boston Globe, 9/10/06)

Leaders ask hard questions, create problems
One of the common complaints of managers is that they can't get any work done because there is a line of employees outside the door. (Boston Globe, 9/03/06)

Is it discrimination, or righteous appraisal?
Let's talk about discrimination. Now there's a conversation stopper around the office. (Boston Globe, 8/27/06)

Good trainers learn from their students
Only when every attempt to teach is an experiment does real learning take place. They learn. And you learn from watching them learn. (Boston Globe, 8/20/06)

Gen Y trying to figure out what to do next
Here's a bit of conversation between career-development coach Jeanine O'Donnell and one of her clients, a recent college graduate. (Boston Globe, 8/13/06)

Involving customers should be the aim of all
When you stop treating the customer as an annoyance, the customer will be delighted to participate in making his or her experience better. (Boston Globe, 8/06/06)

Clever bosses put it off, see if anyone notices
In a world of immediacy, there's magic in postponing a purchase or a management technique. (Boston Globe, 7/30/06)

'Courtesy,' as in rudeness
The job interview. You hear people compare it to a sales call or a first date, but I think it's more like two dogs encountering one another in a park. (Boston Globe, 7/23/06)

The meeting, center of the known world
Firms hoping to blaze trails aren't going to find direction around the conference table. (Boston Globe, 7/16/06)

We hear you. We don't want to follow.
A conversation between a typical baby boomer and a typical younger (Generation Y) person. (Boston Globe, 7/09/06)

For career seekers, one word: advertising
When my sons ask me for career advice ... No, stop right there. If this were advertising copy, I'd never get away with that sentence. (Boston Globe, 6/25/06)