Month: August 2010

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People’s Ideas Mean Business

A business enterprise begins with someone’s idea to provide a product or service.  As demand for its products and/or services increases, the business grows.  With growth in demand often comes an increase in the number of people performing the work of the business and with this there is the added responsibility of managing the people doing the work.  Consequently, as business activity intensifies and the number of people employed increases, managing the business becomes increasingly more complex. Continue reading →

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Hidden Lessons in Leadership #14

The chairman and chief executive of Cardinal Health, George Barrett, shared his experiences and perspective on leadership in a recent interview with Adam Bryant of the New York Times.   Throughout the interview, in speaking about his experiences and the leadership lessons he learned, George Barrett framed leadership not as a position or skills but as qualities of a person—mainly trustworthiness. Continue reading →

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Ethically Sound Action

Ethical decisions are difficult because they involve value-centered life issues that cannot be grasped solely through empirical/objective means. Since there is more to life than spending, getting, and having life must not be equated to the amount of material wealth we amass. There have been instances where the numbers was the guide and the results were disastrous (e.g. most recently Toyota, BP). In short, the numbers alone can’t be the guide. Continue reading →

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Financial Quake

Given the impact many of the financial crises have had, several econophysicists have tried to understand them in the same way as geophysicists view and study earthquakes.  In essence these econophysicists are seeking to model financial tremors in order to predict and prepare for future seismic financial quakes. Continue reading →

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Ethically Sound Action

Ethical decisions are difficult because they involve value-centered life issues that cannot be grasped solely through empirical/objective means. Since there is more to life than spending, getting, and having life must not be equated to the amount of material wealth we amass. There have been instances where the numbers was the guide and the results were disastrous (e.g. most recently Toyota, BP). In short, the numbers alone can’t be the guide. Continue reading →

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Hidden Lessons in Leadership #12

A New York Times interview with Aaron Levie, co-founder and C.E.O of Box.net, reveals the importance of fostering a sense-of-mission to maintaining a viable enterprise and of leading by developing partnerships with employees.

In regard to the first point Aaron said, “everyone has a start-up mentality…so everyone feels really a part of what we’re doing…everyone is encouraged to be entrepreneurial and people tend to be extremely passionate.” Continue reading →

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It’s About Change

Animals are in large part regulated by instinct; their future reflects patterns of the past.  However for humans the future is not limited by instinct; it is not limited to habits of behavior.  Because we are consciously aware beings, reality is the source of challenges to go beyond ‘what is’; it is forever inviting us to learn and thus to change. Continue reading →

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Revenue Falls but Profits Soar–Addendum

Andrew Sum, economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, concluded in his analysis of recent recession data “the carnage that occurred in the workplace as out of proportion to the economic hit that corporations were taking.”  A recent New York Times article by Bob Herbert reports key findings of Professor Sum’s research.  In speaking to the recent period of economic recovery Professor Sum said, we have seen “the most lopsided gains in corporate profits relative to real wages and salaries in our history.” Continue reading →