There’s a very seductive trap that people often fall into when they become successful. It goes something like this: Success eventually leads to arrogance where people become taken with themselves and their success. As a result, they slowly start to alienate the people who helped make them successful in the first place. Arrogance then leads to feelings…
The above quote from actress Geena Davis says it all when it comes to living a meaningful life. Taking a risk is one of the few “no lose” situations that life has to offer–if we succeed, we’re happy and excited, and if we fail, we learn from the experience which makes it much more probable that we’ll…
Doing the right thing makes you look good and it energizes those around. Often we are faced with situations where we ask ourselves, “Should I do the right thing or take the easy way out?” I was on a Hertz Rental Car bus not long ago at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. A pregnant woman traveling…
Few people will argue with the old adage that, “Experience is the best teacher.” Experience is all about trying something new, failing, learning from that failure and then trying again until you get it right. When you think about it, that’s how you learned how to ride a bicycle. The only problem is that many…
Right now, nobody seems to be happy with President Obama’s proposed health care program. The doctors don’t like it because it stresses cost containment which would interfere with their individual prerogative to practice medicine the way they feel it should be practiced and it would also make it that much more difficult for them to…
During difficult times, it’s easy to get wrapped up in our own needs and concerns and forget all about the needs of those around us. We forget about how a kind word can brighten a colleague’s day or the impact that a caring gesture can have on a friend or neighbor. More important, we forget…
A good example of how spoiling customers is good business involves the Nordstrom department store chain. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where until recently, there had been no Nordstrom. The closest stores were located in San Diego, some 300 miles away or one hour by air. So how did Nordstrom get people from Phoenix to shop…
Most of us will agree that one of the most boring things in the world is to have to listen to someone talk about themself while you want to talk about yourself. The thing we often forget, however, is that the person we’re talking to feels the same way. People really don’t care about what…
Chrysler and GM will emerge from bankruptcy with completely new looks. The logic is that the new Chrysler and the new GM will be in a much better position to compete companies like Toyota. As GM vice chairman Bob Lutz put it, “We will be smaller, leaner and we’re going to be a powerhouse.” Unfortunately,…
We’ve known for nearly a century that the better you treat people, the harder they’ll work. It’s a pretty straightforward relationship. This being the case, it seems logical to conclude that the job of every team leader, supervisor, manager and executive should be to treat their employees as well as possible so they become excited…