Reflecting on a Job Market – Employee and Employer
To gain significant wealth in the US you have to take significant risk. Usually that means starting your own business or being on the ground floor with someone who is. The individuals who put their neck on the line deserve the spoils of that risk. The last three years proves the fittest survives in business. [...]
6.5 Graphs Outlining the US Economy
I’m in a room that’s 8 feet by 10 feet. It’s just me. There’s a small box playing loops of TV shows, but I’m ignoring it. The temperature is 95 degrees but its cold in here. And I have a lot to think about. I know I’m going to pay for it. Situations like this [...]
Huge Layoffs and What They Mean
I got a great email from Rose King of Accountingdegree.com the other day. She shared with me a blog entry they authored about 13 Huge Layoffs. Below is an excerpt from it. I’ve always been fascinated by layoff announcements. Not in a positive way, but in a curious way. It prompts questions about what went [...]
Split Personalities – Tax Breadth and Tax Depth
We seem to have split personalities when it comes to the news and our politics. In the news we hear about natural disasters and the sour economy. In politics we hear about the failings of the President and the deficit. Why are these two voices talking about different subjects? The truth is they are talking [...]
The Train with No Known Destination
Last week news broke of Eric Schmidt leaving the CEO post at Google. He’s replaced by Larry Page. Speculation is that Schmidt no longer felt he was in control of the company. The triumvirate of Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt had become a duopoly of Brin and Page, the founders. The genesis of [...]
Value Creator – CEOs
Chief Executive Magazine and chiefexecutive.net are running the third annual list of CEOs that are value creators and value destroyers . The standard measurement of a CEO doing well is the stock price, but there are influences on a stock price that may or may not happen. For instance Apple’s stock price barely budged when [...]
Scared of Ideas or Open to Change?
He hears the alarm clock, hits snooze, and lays there for ten minutes somewhere between sleep and awake. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg plays: He does what I think is one of the hardest things in the world to do, he puts the first foot on the floor in the [...]
The Next 30 Years: Smaller
An election just passed and the results indicate a very unsatisfied voter. It makes perfect sense. Middle class jobs are scarce and wealth is gravitating only to the uber-rich. We’ve had a thirty year mirage in the standards of living. Thirty years is a time period I key in on. President Ronald Reagan made thirty [...]
Well Said Leadership Characteristics
Every Sunday the NY Times runs an interview of a business leader called Corner Office. The questions are about leadership, hiring, and career advice. The answers are usually insightful. For example, this past Sunday George S. Barrett was the interviewee. He’s from Cardinal Health – the Chairman and CEO to be exact. Adam Bryant asked a question about Leadership and got a response I wholeheartedly agree with. Leadership is essentially about particular characteristics and how they are conveyed. He sums it up well below:
Q. What’s your philosophy of leadership?
A. Articulating it in a single sound bite is hard for me, but I’d say this. I do think leadership is largely about trust, and trust has a couple of dimensions. It starts with competence. People have to believe that you really know what you’re doing. They have to really trust in your judgment because the data is so complex out there that they have to believe you can see through all the silliness and have some sense of the right course.
Considering a Passionate Outlet: For You and Your Employees
Derek Christian worked at Proctor and Gamble for 12 years and decided he needed a new challenge. My Maid Service is his outlet. He’s organized a small
business around the cleaning the homes for the affluent of Cincinatti. But as it says in the story on
CNNMoney.com Small Business section, Christian experienced customer satisfaction issues.
Cleaning homes requires a high level of trust. Trust is earned over a period of time, so not only did My Maid Service have to have competent employees, but it has to have trustworthy ones as well.
And trust is in the eye of the beholder. The problem is that very few people aspire to be a maid.