You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. The stock market just dropped by 20% yesterday, and you were caught unprepared. Don’t think this can happen to you? Think again. It happens with regularity. It’s part of our business cycle. It happened October 19, 1987 when the DOW dropped 22.61%.…
I was giddy, but I was scared to death. I knew at some point the stock market was going to crash, but I didn’t want to miss out on the boom. It was paralyzing…well, almost. That’s how I felt in 1999 before the stock market crashed. I knew, deep down inside that I needed to…
“Bring us up to your level.” the CEO said to me when he was recruiting me to join his company as a division general manager. I was flattered. I also thought I could really help the company. I was eager to get started. After all, the company was very successful and very profitable. However, the…
“You’re doing a great job, but I think you’re a year away from being promoted to Director,” I said to “Jim”. Jim looked devastated. He had done great work, everything I ever asked him to do, and I thought he could progress far in the organization. He was also very young, maybe five years into…
I blew it. The voice in the back of my head was arguing with itself. On the one hand it was saying, “Don’t hire ‘Jim’. There’s something wrong with him.” On the other hand, the voice was saying, “Brett, you need help in this area. You should hire Jim. He’s got a wealth of experience.…
I am coming out of the closet, so to speak. No, not like THAT! My family’s favorite television show, Project Runway, began season 13 last Thursday night. For the next 16 Thursdays, my family and I will live and die with the escapades of an unknown group of eclectic fashion designers. We will make it…
“I was so distraught that I broke down and started crying.” Bill Walsh I was fortunate, in the 1990’s, to take a continuing education class on leadership at Stanford University. The class featured 10 speakers including Stanford’s provost and Stanford’s head football coach. The provost was future United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and…
I’ll never forget the moment I gave up my freedom. I did what we all do: I confided to my friend Steve at work about a work problem I was having. After all, he was the friend/co-worker I could tell my troubles to. What I really did was complain for an hour about someone just…
I was up the whole night. I knew I had to do it, and I knew it needed to be done. That didn’t help me fall asleep in the least. It – an insomnia-inducing feeling of dread – was the feeling I had the first time I ever had to fire someone. My heart was…
Micromanagement. The mere hearing of the word sends chills down your spine. You certainly don’t want to be micromanaged, and being labeled a micromanager – well, that can be a career killer. Just one question: is micromanagement always bad? Hardly. Full disclosure: like most CEO’s, I have been accused of being a micromanager. I’ve also…