I spent some time on an airplane today. As I sat in the airport watching people go by, I couldn’t help but think back to a time when flying was rather glamorous. Passengers would get dressed up. Families would walk to the gate and wave to their loved ones as the plane took off and would be waiting at the gate with enthusiasm upon the return. And if you were fortunate enough to fly in First Class, it was a pretty special experience. Those days have been gone for more than a decade now. The attire for most passengers is determined by where they’re going or where they’ve been. Even worse, for some it’s a matter of what they woke up in. Based on the fact there continue to be some really bad peop
The morning after a sixteen hour drive from Illinois, my father-in law walked into my office and asked, “Do we learn more from our successes or more from our failures?” My first thought was, “You spent way too much time in the car. You really should find a car game to keep you occupied.” After giving it a quick thought I assumed we learn more from our successes. After all, most people spend an enormous amount of effort trying to be successful. In fact, those who are highly driven spend an inordinate amount of time beating themselves up for failure. However, the question he posed was, “Do we learn more from our successes or more from our failures?” In many ways we don’t learn much from our su
Some people are wonderful with details. They can take an incredible vision, break it down into bite-sized pieces, and identify a laundry list of tasks to be completed in order to realize the vision. I do everything I can to surround myself with these people, because I am not one of them. I’ve had some moments of analysis paralysis where I consumed every detail of a project. But for the most part, I’m more a big-picture guy. I leave the details to someone else. I’ve worked for companies of different sizes. I’ve worked as a front-line manager for a huge company, where the vision was decided at levels far beyond mine. I’ve worked as an executive for a mid-sized company, where the vision was dec
Listen. Can you hear it? There is someone around you not taking the blame for something in their life. In fact, you hear it everywhere you go. The sales department blames the operations department for under-delivering. The operations department blames the sales department for over-promising. The employees blame the boss for not providing enough direction. The boss blames the employees for not listening. The blame never ends. It seems as though everyone is striving to be inducted into the Hall of Blame. In fact, those people responsible for marketing products to us know we don’t like to take responsibility for our actions. Not long ago I was watching television and heard the most wonderful ne
