Profit as an indicator of success. I am amazed at how dumb this is. More profit is easy. Just cut corners or costs. Ethical or not, do it, you’ll have higher profits. Feel successful now? I hope not. But so many businesses do just exactly those things and then tout how successful they are. Really? … Continue reading Profit as a success measure. Not for my money.

Metrics, scores, numbers, they rule so much of our lives. The problem is that unless you are playing a sport or game with defined rules as to the length of the game and the criteria for winning, metrics are just that, metrics, and they can only track progress or regress, not winning or losing. In … Continue reading Metrics. Boon or bane? It’s all in how they’re used.

Do you want customers to love your company? Do you want your employees to love it too? Of course you do, but do you really? Do you really want them to LOVE it or do you use the word “love” as just a quaint colloquial term that’s really just a slightly more dramatic version of … Continue reading Book Review: Love Is Just Damn Good Business by Steve Farber

Standards. The word brings up thoughts of rules, regulations, and inflexibility. We need standards though. They can bring fairness. Think rules in a game. They can bring consistency. Think your favorite ice cream. They can help us behave. Think norms for a meeting. However, they can be used for evil. Standards can be unfair. Think … Continue reading Standards. Wisdom should be one.

When we talk about building better workplaces, many people think it is about turning everything on its head and starting a revolution. And while that might get quick results, there is usually a lot of damage in the wake so I am not a proponent of that thinking. A better way is to start an … Continue reading Better workplaces require evolution, not revolution.

One thing that I often encounter when talking about coaching is the thought that in order to coach, you must be an expert. That is not necessarily the case. It depends on your objective. If you are trying to “coach” people on how to do something, you will largely need to have expertise in the … Continue reading Can I coach if I’m not an expert?