You can listen to what people say, sure. But you will be far more effective if you listen to what people do.

When you do important work, work that changes things and work that matters, it’s inconceivable that the change you are trying to make will be met with complete approval. Trying to please everyone will water down your efforts, frustrate your forward motion and ultimately fail. The balancing act is to work to please precisely the…

One of the old-fashioned skills that today goes largely unsung, a skill important to any business’ success. And that skill is… listening. Not listening. Listening. In today’s world, we are constantly chattering, twittering, blogging, talking. With so much talking, listening tends to go by the wayside. And by listening, I don’t just mean registering messages other…

Not many people know John D Rockefeller [without first using google], however you don't need google to tell you the significance of Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. John D Rockefeller was an American business magnate. He was one of the wealthiest people of his time. Albert Einstein was an ordinary guy, who…

It’s so easy to take things for granted in our lives. We have a good thing that lasts and, before long, we kind of assume that good thing will last forever. No good thing lasts forever without some care and maintenance. Relationships. Health. Nothing. You have to give something of yourself to maintain everything of…

“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.” We spend more than 50% of our lives at work. Why would anyone want to wake up in the morning and go to work with that attitude? If you don’t make it personal, and if you don’t make it count, what’s the point? Business is missing one important core value: compassion. “Between work and…

When the economy slows down and recession starts, it’s natural to think of yourself first. You have a family to feed, a mortgage bond to pay. Getting more, wanting more appears to be the order of business. It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we are rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time…

Why are we willing to try things when this might not work? Because it might work. The only way to change things is to try things that might not work.  This, of course, does not guarantee that things will work out – your idea might be truly crazy or impossible. But we have to aim…

What’s the most important phrase in innovation? You could make the case for “That’s interesting.”  Lots of great ideas start with curiousity.  If you want to become more innovative, increasing your awareness of what’s going on around you is a great way to start.  And when you find interesting things, you can start to learn…

Persistence is not using the same tactics over and over. That's just insane. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

We care a lot about finding people who are brilliant, who get things done, who make a difference. We care a lot about finding a stage-play writer with talent, a doctor who can cure us, a programmer who can get the thing to work. Along the way, many of the talented people who are able…