So, if it’s true that to a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, the really useful question is, “what sort of hammer do you have?” At big TV networks, they have a TV hammer. At a surgeon’s office, they have the scalpel hammer. A drug counselor has the talk hammer, […]
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Author: Sam Muchai
Stevie and Marvin
When Marvin Gaye joined Motown, he went with his strengths. He wanted to work only in the studio. He hated touring and was sure he lacked the charisma and other gifts that made some musicians great onstage. This didnt really fit the labels strengths, and he struggled to find his footing. In 1962, Berry Gordy […]
When we give away our day, we give away ...
Time and focus and enery Sooner or later, theyre all finite. And the way we allocate our time and emotional energy determines what gets done. If we audited your day in six-minute increments, what would we find? By the clock, how did you actually spend the time you given to you (we each get the […]
Must-Have Skills For An E commerce Leade...
Must-Have Skills For An E commerce Leader E commerce has come a very long way in a relatively short period of time. What began as a pioneering role in the nascent world of online commerce is now a position that sits at the table with the senior most strategic decision makers of an organization, […]
How to manage the challenges created by ...
HELPFUL LINKS & INFORMATION (This section will be continually growing & evolving) A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ———————————————————————————————————— LEADING DURING A CRISIS 5 (Practical) Cs for Leading in a Crisis/Downturn by Verne Harnish > 5 (Practical) Cs for Leading in a Crisis/Downturn by Verne Harnish (EN ESPANOL / IN SPANISH)> Facing a Company Crisis? Follow […]
Its not the rats you need to worry about
If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do. iTunes and file sharing killed Tower Records. The key symptom: the best customers switched. Of course people who were buying 200 records a year would switch. They had the most incentive. The alternatives were cheaper and faster […]
Success is a state of mind = integrity +...
Life is what you make it but it only occurs in the present: NOW. No one forces us to do anything, but every decision that we make has an impact on the quality of our present moment. Success is a state of mind! and not only of mind but also of body and soul Successful […]
True professionals dont fear amateurs…
Professional farmers dont begrudge the backyard gardener his tomato harvest. Thats silly. And talented mechanics certainly dont mind the antics of the Car Talk guys (or their listeners). Sooner or later, if you need a real mechanic, youll find one, and if you dont, well, thats fine too. A few years ago, typesetting, wedding photography, […]
Think Consumption Is The ‘Engine’ Of Our
There is a fundamental illogic to the notion that an economy can be grown by encouraging consumption. When a person consumes, by definition, they use things up. The very process leaves us with less than before. Growing the availability of valuable goods and services for society by using them up is not just an […]
Marketing Defined…
I think that any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved. Perhaps it was advertising, or perhaps deliberate story telling by an industry. Or perhaps it was just the stories we tell one another in our daily lives. It’s sort of amazing, even to me, how much marketing colors the […]
Do not take industry conditions as given...
As Steve Jobs put it, You tend to get told that the world is the way it is.. But thats a very limited {View}. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that we call life was made up by people that were no smarter than […]
Is this your missing Skill….?
It’s difficult to find the leverage to make a difference. At your job, there are probably people with more experience than you, more domain knowledge than you, even more skills than you. The same is true about your competition. But there’s one place where you can make your mark: Your attitude. You can bring more […]
40 Business Secrets you wont find under ...
Here are 40 pointers for Scaling Up Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Fortune: The greatest business decisions of All Time. Hire fewer people but pay them more. No team is so big that it cant be fed with two pizzas. If more than one person is accountable, then no one is accountable, and thats when […]
The call of the Open Sea…
There are predictable evolution and revolutions as an organization grows. These are dictated by the increasing complexity that comes with adding employees,customers,product lines,the locations,etc. Handling a company’s growth successfully requires three things; a) An increasing number of capable leaders. b) A Scalable Infrastructure c) The ability to navigate certain market dynamics. If these factors are […]
The initiator….
For each person who cares enough to make something, who is bold enough to ship it, who is generous enough to say, “here, I made this,”… There are ten people who say, “I could have done it better.” A hundred people who say, “Who are you to do this?” A thousand people who say, […]
What are corporations for..?
The purpose of a company is to serve its customers. Its obligation is to not harm everyone else. And its opportunity is to enrich the lives of its employees. Somewhere along the way, people got the idea that maximizing investor return was the point. It shouldn’t be. That’s not what democracies ought to seek in […]
Sold or bought…?
Some things are bought–like bottled water, airplane tickets and chewing gum. The vendor sets up shop and then waits, patiently, for someone to come along and decide to buy. Other things are sold–like cars, placement of advertising in magazines and life insurance. If no salesperson is present, if no pitch is made, nothing happens. […]
Explore Experience Audit…
When was the last time you went to a supermarket and watched customers look at your product?when was the last time you were a mystery shopper for your own products or service? If managers would call their own customer services lines and have to wait forever,trapped in “voice mail jail” those truly committed to […]
The 3 Decisions That Made Mandela a Trul...
Only a handful of people in a century command the global authority that Nelson Mandela does. These three crucial judgments cemented his greatness. Nelson Mandela’s life story has long since become a legend, one that transcends borders, race, language, or culture. His leadership truly belongs to the world. It would be absurd–let alone disrespectful to […]
Solving the problem isn’t the problem…
The problem is finding a vector that pays for itself as you scale. We see a problem and we think we’ve “solved” it, but if there isn’t a scalable go-to-market business approach behind the solution, it’s not going to work. This is where engineers and other problem solvers so often get stuck. Industries and organizations […]
Run your own race…
The rear view mirror is one of the most effective motivational tools ever created. There’s no doubt that many people speed up in the face of competition. We ask, “how’d the rest of the class do?” We listen for someone breathing down our necks. And we discover that competition sometimes brings out our best. There’s […]
Adopt vs. adapt….
An early adopter seeks out new ideas and makes them work. An adapter, on the other hand, puts up with what he has to, begrudgingly. One is offense, the other is defense. One requires the spark of curiosity, the other is associated with fear, or at least hassle. Hint: it’s not so easy to sell […]