Let's Do Lunch.....Leadership and Career Growth in Silicon Valley

There’s a good reason that the Scott Adams cartoon, Dilbert, has a character called “Mordac The Preventer of Information Systems”. I’ve heard many disparaging comments about I.T. departments in general and in the last 3 weeks I’ve been at my wits end trying to get a project approved in our I.T. department.

From Scott Adam’s [...]

The most common corporate buzzwords that I’ve been hearing over the last year are “transformation and “disrupt”.  Companies are focusing on how to create a competitive advantage in this tough economic downturn.  Markets have been shrinking during this 22 month recession and any advantage must come from focusing on business infrastructure in the reduction of [...]

We’ve all sat through long presentations that left us wondering how to get that fraction of our lives back. You know, those “FYI” presentations that are often more self aggrandizing than informative. During this economic downturn, I have seen an increased number of internal company business communications that have made me wonder who [...]

I chuckled when I read “Speaking Truth to PowerPoint” in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Business has grown to rely heavily on PowerPoint as a primary communications medium. Unfortunately, details are lost because the nature of presentation slides is summarization. I depth business planning requires a format that is conducive to [...]

The economic downturn drags on and the job market has gotten tough. There is a lot of speculation that the economy is at or near a bottom of this slump but how long will we stay there until recovery begins? Companies continue to let very talented people go as they hunker down against [...]

Leadership is a double edged sword.  On the one hand, leaders who are too controlling make their people feel uncomfortable making decisions.  On the other hand, leaders who don’t provide enough guidance create a culture that fosters inconsistency and lacks goals.  Both extremes cause passive aggressive behaviors that break down corporate culture and damage trust.  [...]

Business decisions are, by their nature, subjective. Oh, we analyze data to understand exceptions and develop processes to ensure consistency; but, these are only aids to understand and limit risk. It’s interesting to observe so much effort around data analysis and process development, in an attempt to cover all bases. In the end, [...]