ChrisBanescu.com

by Tony Schwartz – The way most of us work isn’t working. Study after study has shown that companies are experiencing a crisis in employee engagement. A 2007 Towers Perrin survey of nearly 90,000 employees worldwide, for instance, found that only 21% felt fully engaged at work and nearly 40% were disenchanted or disengaged. That [...]

by Michelle Greenwald – How exactly do we define innovation? While it’s probably the most overused term in business today, innovation is not a fad. It’s not even new. What differentiates a smart innovation—and makes it worth writing about—is that it has the capability of moving a business forward in ways that can result in [...]

by Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. – How and why do incompetent people rise to the top? Why are there so many incompetent leaders? Is your boss less than competent? How about that department head in accounting or HR that doesn’t know his/her job? How in the world do incompetent people rise to the top in [...]

by Marla Tabaka – The purpose-driven company is led by someone who has a reliable inner compass guiding them. John Baldoni asks: What’s your direction? Can you describe the purpose of your business in a single sentence? Do you—and does every single person who is connected with your organization—have a reason to believe in that [...]

by Chris Banescu – As the world mourns the passing away of Steven P. Jobs, the visionary entrepreneur and creative genius behind Apple, it’s important to remember some timeless insights and essential lessons for life that he talked about. I was reminded of the maturity and wisdom of his message while watching a video of [...]

It is often in times of crisis and life-threatening emergencies that the real character of an individual is made manifest. The contrasts between the leadership of an American airline captain and that of our current president offer us an opportunity for personal and societal reflection. The differences could not be more striking. On January 15, [...]

by Michael Hyatt – About once a week I get an email from someone who wants to know how to work for a bad leader. Maybe their boss is a jerk. Maybe he is just incompetent. Regardless, they are not quite sure how to lead well in this kind of situation. Though I eventually became [...]

By Jim Collins – The author of Good to Great on how to spot the subtle signs that your successful company is actually on course to sputter—and how to reverse the slide before it’s too late. I pondered and puzzled and finally settled upon the question: Is America renewing its greatness, or is America dangerously [...]

by Greg Pesci – Entrepreneurs, free to pursue their economic dreams, built America! They are, and always have been, its creators of jobs, growth, and wealth. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America:“It may be said that, in the United States, there is no limit to the inventiveness of man to discover [...]

by Rich Karlgaard – (Note: Last week I sat down with Intel’s Paul Otellini to talk about technology in the 2-to-5-year future. Can Moore’s Law continue? What will smartphones, tablets and PCs look like in two years? I will publish our conversation in the March 14 issue of Forbes magazine. Meanwhile, enjoy Otellini’s riff on [...]

by Jason Fried – When one of our products malfunctioned, thousands of stranded customers erupted in fury. Yet we came out of the crisis more credible than ever. Here’s what we did. It was a really lousy week. One of 37signals’s key products is Campfire, a real-time chat tool for small businesses. For about a [...]

11/19/2010 – Davia Temin – Evil in the office. If you think about it, you’ll probably realize you’ve seen it play out at least once in your career. All of a sudden a well-running, friendly, effective group or company begins to disintegrate for no apparent reason. People start to become demoralized and dysfunctional, efficiency plummets, [...]

11/19/2010 – Paul Spiegelman – Paul Spiegelman, the founder and CEO of Beryl, a call-center company in Bedford, Texas, has built a unique, people-centric culture, which he chronicled in the book, Why is Everyone Smiling? His next book, co-authored with Beryl employees, is titled Smile Guide: Employee Perspectives on Culture, Loyalty and Profit. Here, Spiegelman [...]

8/8/2010 – Shawn Graham – For most of my adult life, I was incredibly easy to read. I wore my heart, and most of my facial expressions, on my sleeve. On occasion, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Other times, such as in my high school English class where the teacher threw note cards at [...]

7/29/2010 – Christine M. Riordan – Micromanage. A dreaded word. The dictionary defines it as “to direct or control in a detailed, often meddlesome manner.” Most popular management books call it something to avoid at all costs and give decisive tips on how not to do it. As a professor of management, I often talk [...]

5/12/2010 – Nick Morgan – Tell one of these, and you’ll always succeed. The culture we’re all immersed in together gives you a great gift as a presenter–a wealth of stories that already lie deep in any audience’s consciousness. Use these stories to give your speeches power and to connect immediately and deeply with your [...]

5/4/2010 – George J. Dennis – My company, TV Ears, specializes in sound. We manufacture TV listening products that have helped more than one million people hear the television more clearly. The idea came about after I tried to find something for my dad that would help him hear the TV. Nothing helped, so I [...]

Townhall.com | by Cal Thomas | 3/2/2010 When Toyota President Akio Toyoda testified last week before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, an attitude was exposed that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) correctly characterized as fostering a “cutthroat corporate” environment that placed costs ahead of quality and safety. Such a priority would have been [...]

Inc.com | by Bo Burlingham | 2/1/2010 When Nick Sarillo launched his pizza business, he had one goal in mind: to create a corporate culture unlike any he had seen. It’s Takeout Tuesday at Nick’s Pizza & Pub, and the air is thick with the smells of hot pizza crust, peppers, onions, and cheese. Eighteen [...]

Inc.com | by Joel Spolsky | 2/1/2010 Have you ever invited employees to a meeting just so they wouldn’t feel left out? If so, you may be an overcommunicator. When was the last time you scheduled a meeting and invited eight people instead of the three people who really needed to be there simply because [...]

Inc.com | As told to Liz Welch | 12/1/2009 Former supermodel Kathy Ireland founded a little company to make products for “busy moms” like herself. Now, with revenue of $1.4 billion, she’s busier than ever. When she was in her 20s and a model, Kathy Ireland says, her job description was “Shut up and pose.” [...]

Inc. | by John Mackey John Mackey of Whole Foods describes his process for identifying key hires. Q: What traits should I look for when hiring for a leadership position?

Forbes | by Joan Gurvis | Nov. 25, 2009 If having a balanced life was elusive in the fast-paced good times, it can seem impossible in the fast-paced tough times. The pressures on leaders are huge. Distractions are everywhere. As work demands grow, our inclination is to continue to try to do more things more [...]

Inc.com | John Mackey Interview | July 2009 Q: What traits should I look for when hiring for a leadership position? A: My philosophy about this has definitely evolved over the years. I understand people a lot better today than I did 30 years ago. Back then, I was more impressed with people who were [...]

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. – [...]