Summary: A CEO needs a regular report on a small set of indicators that tells him whether the basic machinery of the business is functioning. Here are some guidelines for creating that report. Years ago I had lunch with a former colleague who told me a sad tale of a publishing company that neglected to…
Maynard Ferguson was one of my trumpet-playing heroes in high school. He was a fabulous trumpet player who (I’m told) wasn’t able to teach others how to do what he did. That’s not unusual. Some people can do a thing but don’t understand exactly how or why they’re so good at it. Teaching, coaching, and…
Summary: Create a spot in your work environment where you can avoid distractions and do head-down, serious work. It’s hard to do concentrated, single-minded work while your computer, your phone, and your iPad are all bleeping at you. Offices need to be designed for quiet space, and that includes your home office. If you work…
Summary: Kidlin’s Law and Rubber Duck Debugging show that writing or verbalizing an issue brings clarity and often reveals a path to the solution. This article explores mental models like the Five Whys, dialectical thinking, and structured procrastination to enhance problem-solving. This morning I heard about Kidlin’s law, which instantly resonated. It’s one of those…
I write, and I read a bit about writing. Plenty of people advocate strict methods for writers: write a page a day, wake up at 5:00 to get the words down, and stick to a schedule no matter what. On the other side, you have those who idolize the strange habits of creative geniuses —…
Summary: To fix a nagging old tech problem, take one small step towards fixing it. I saw a post to this effect on LinkedIn. Everybody’s trying to use AI to transform their business. I’m wondering how to get payroll off an Excel spreadsheet. Everybody has this problem. You have some old timey, inefficient process you’ve…
Business leaders should aggressively seek out second opinions from outside their organization. Here are ten reasons why. You’re working with incomplete information. No matter how much you’ve researched the topic, you almost certainly missed something. A second opinion may reveal gaps in your knowledge or alternative sources of insight. You’re surrounded by people who have…
Summary: Understanding someone requires more than knowing facts about them, or even their perspective. It involves grasping the story they live in — their narrative, conflicts, and worldview. Looking at things this way fosters empathy, reveals motivations, and makes it easier to collaborate across different perspectives. Each person constructs a story of his life in…
Summary: When trouble-shooting a problem, challenge your assumptions, and do the easy thing first. This morning I had another lesson in “it’s not what you think.” My first big lesson in that regard was with a garbage disposal. It quit working. I assumed it had died, so I replaced it. The new one worked great…
Summary: A lot of life involves finding the balance between extremes. This article expresses the concept as “fine lines” between two approaches to an issue. There’s a fine line between being data-driven and losing touch with the people behind the numbers. “Data-driven” is overused. It’s actually very easy to be misled by data. I’ll post…
Summary: “We’ve always done it this way” may be a sign of obstinate inflexibility, or it may be a sign of respect for the people who created the rules in the first place. They had to have their reasons. I saw a thread on LinkedIn criticizing the old “we’ve always done it this way” as…
Summary: When evaluating a new technology, you’ll have lots of preconceptions about how it should work, and what key terms mean. You need to shed those preconceptions and ask lots and lots of detailed questions. Last week I was working on an article for Martech.org on customer data platforms and their close kin – that…
Summary: Goals and objectives should be planned ahead of time. Methods and operations should be documented afterwards. Many years ago I did a workshop on how to get marketing to work with IT. I’ve noticed that when IT says, “I need a requirements document,” marketing often hears that as “go away, kid, you bother me.”…
Summary: One type of efficiency often leads to inefficiency in other areas. It’s important to maintain a balanced perspective on different types of efficiency and to relate them to your overall goals. Dishwashers frequently have an efficiency label on them. Those labels irritate me because they imply there’s only one kind of efficiency that matters…
I’ve been preparing a workshop on how to develop use cases, and I was taking some notes over the weekend. I started with obvious things like quick wins and bang for the buck, but a few things I read reminded me that there are often other considerations. There are any number of things you can…