Monday, July 19, 2010
The difference between my money management attitude as a manager/executive and as a business owner can be summed up by a version of the famous ham and eggs breakfast-making fable: the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. As a young exec, frankly my sense of responsibility resembled that of the chicken but as a business owner am now much more like the pig.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
“We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.” – Walter Anderson
Trust is a quality that is easily discussed but difficult to give; no one wants to be taken advantage of, but we competitive Type As hate even the suggestion.
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Friday, January 8, 2010
As a fairly young, 30-year-old employer I make workplace mistakes. In fact, quite often. But having worked in several company environments and at differing levels at this point I have the basics pretty well down.
Based on lessons I’ve learned the hard way and from my experience managing workplace teams for close to a decade, below is my list of the top eight mistakes young employees make. If you’re just starting out in business, this is what I wish someone had told me when I was in your position. If you’re new to managing a team or have young team members, consider this a roadmap to some negatives you probably will have to deal with.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
In an ideal world virtually everyone would build a business…at least if they’re interested in getting paid twice for their hard work. For a number of reasons building a business is a good decision.
Three are the most obvious and popular – making money, working less, and future saleability. You’ve most likely read about the first two. This post will focus on that third reason, which is perhaps the most important – future salability…how you can get paid twice for all of your nine-to-five effort.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
This past weekend I tracked down an old friend though I didn’t know where she was living, what she was doing, or even her married name. What made my search much more difficult is that I discovered after several Google queries that she had no personal online presence whatsoever.
From a digital perspective she was lost in a sea of six billion people.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
A topic that has captivated me for almost a decade is that of the culture found within faith-based organizations, both for profit and non-profit. These organizations often possess special assets, but they also face unusual challenges. This post briefly touches on both and puts forth an analogy of how a successful faith-based for-profit company might operate.
Though I think the analogy also fit non-profits, this will largely focus on the former, and by the description I mean a company that operates in a normal, secular industry but whose founder or culture is heavily intertwined with some form of religious faith.
I’ve had a fair amount of experience with several for-profit businesses that are heavily faith-based, in particular Christian. While in college I had a part-time internship with a company like this, have worked as an executive and in smaller roles for a for-profit company that had a high percentage of faith-based employees, and now own and run a small company that by and large fits my definition above.
