If you're smart, you will learn how to do one thing and do it well.
I remember sitting in my college statistics class and the professor giving this advice, “If you’re smart, you will learn how to do one thing and do it well.” The reason this quote sticks out for me is how often I heard it during my youth. Becoming an expert at one thing is what college […]
Reading email has a hidden danger: there’s no human emotion attached. Consider the following sentence that could be contained in any average office exchange: The customer doesn’t like the order and wants a refund. Pretty straightforward, right? Consider, though, that different people in your company may interpret the sentence. A salesman might read this and […]
Entrepreneurs pride themselves on being scrappy, able to change on a moment’s notice. When you work with a small core group of people (and the competition is huge), this is an obvious advantage: you can iterate faster and there’s less red tape to cut through to get stuff done. Having been through several start-ups myself, […]
I just finished reading Steve Jobs’ biography, and man, what a page turner. Having worked at several start-ups, it was amazing to see that some problems we faced, Apple did too in its early days: disorganization, growing pains, and defining company identity. It was also gripping knowing what I know now – that Steve Jobs […]
If you’ve never been a decision maker for a project or team, you might think the decision makers always have all the information. I’m here to tell you it just isn’t true. First, taking the time to gather “all” the information necessary to make a nuanced decision would take way more time than you have, […]
Hey, project managers, does this sound like you? Snickers aside, there was some accurate stuff in there. Some of it revealed frustration from a project manager’s point of view (changing deliverables, hard to wrangle team members). Some of it showed how frustrating it can be to work with a project manager (condescending tone, not listening […]
You are best defined by: Who you endorse in your private life. What you do online. Where you spend your personal time. When you choose (or not choose) to help others. Why you get up in the morning. How you act when you think no one cares. And if you think your peers don’t see […]
I’ve worked enough 9-to-5 (and later) jobs in the past to know that the world does not accommodate the 9-to-5er. Many banks aren’t open late and have limited, if any, weekend hours. Doctors won’t see you after work. Packages you need to sign for at home always arrive the minute you leave home. Lots of […]
If you’re like me, you get interrupted a lot while you work. Co-workers stop by to ask questions, the phone rings, or an instant message pops up with something to answer right away. You might want to cut off these distractions, and that’s often a smart move. Carving out time during your day when you […]
We are programmed over time to assume the worst. When’s the last time someone asked you to plan for the “best case scenario” only? It’s not just events either. Having lived through life and gotten burned once or twice, we tend to assume the worst in people. Someone shows up late a few days to […]
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