The End of the Road for Two of My Heroes
Two of my musical heroes passed away this fall. First, my conducting mentor at Arizona State University, conductor of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, and former Principal Trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Henry Charles Smith; and most recently, the estimable lyricist and composer, Stephen Sondheim. Both were American intellectual and musical giants who significantly inspired me, both Renaissance men, and both nonagenarians at the time […]
A Simple Rule to Run Effective Meetings
A Simple Rule to Run Effective Meetings Ask your team to identify their biggest productivity killer and inevitably two issues will rise to the top of the list: managing their inboxes and their useless meeting schedules. I’ll tackle the former in a future post. For now, I’d like to focus on increasing the value of […]
How to have a great work relationship with your boss? (Spare her the details)
How to have a great work relationship with your boss? (Spare her the details) One common complaint among leaders is that they feel bogged down by verbal details from direct reports. For this reason, I have created a list of five tips for having a great work relationship and to provide direct reports with just […]
Self-help: Better to Disappoint than Disappear
Self-Help: Better to disappoint than disappear I always say, it’s better to disappoint and disappear We’ve all been in situations where we were confronted with having to disappoint someone, whether it’s a friend, family member or a business partner. We kept putting it off because we wanted to avoid the ensuing conflict, justifiably or […]
How to improve team productivity and how to measure it
How to improve team productivity and how to measure it This is where most companies succeed or fail. We’ve all seen big companies start from the ground up. Microsoft, Apple, Uber and many others have shown us that we can go from an idea to a successful business with the right bases. These bases are […]
