Innovation, especially innovation that disrupts industries, is pretty exciting and fun to watch. Innovation is such a buzz word in business right now, too. It’s taking place all around us. Yeah! I read an article in Popular Mechanics recently, and it got me thinking about all the inspiring and just plain awesome innovation that is
There may be no more important quality for business leaders to possess than embracing an era’s zeitgeist––literally, the “spirit of our time.” Wikipedia describes zeitgeist as the dominant set of ideals and beliefs that motivate the actions of the members of a society in a particular period in time. For business leaders, it means keeping
Today I have been asked many times about my take on the headline “Amazon Buying Whole Foods.” What I think is that this whole (no pun intended) thing is a little surprising to me. For one thing, the 13.7 billion dollar valuation doesn’t seem that big, especially when compared to all the crazy valuations and
If work stress has made you act like a jerk to business associates in the past, it’s time to repent! I don’t mean repentance as part of a religious ritual; I am talking about business repentance–which is recognizing today how we may have negatively impacted other people in our career. In other words, accepting and
Would you consider the following situation a quagmire or a business opportunity? You are a legacy company that is very heavy in fixed assets, low in tech and (because of shareholders and Wall Street) the pressure for short term results is very high. You want to become tech heavy, asset light, and future-forward, but you
This morning reaffirmed what I wrote about last week, that we need to make mistakes. I found the gem below as I was doing my daily devotional and it articulates perfectly my intent in the Making Mistakes In Business Is Important blog: We should be making even more mistakes––in life as well as in business.
What’s your business policy? I believe everyone has one. Mine is a No Jerky People Policy. Let me explain… Last week, I was at a wine dinner with George Daou, founder of Daou Vineyards in Paso Robles, California. He is everything you would expect–charming, interesting, captivating. During our dinner, he declared his business policy (and
“It’s ok to make mistakes” is a clichéd and mostly misunderstood concept. Merriam-Webster defines a mistake as an error in judgment, but it can also be an error in action, calculation, or opinion, caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, or insufficient knowledge. We tend to think of the acceptance or intolerance of making mistakes as a