[June 03, 2014] Last year I was at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to get a new driver’s license and car plates. Nationwide DMVs have a bad reputation for historically terrible customer service. Interestingly, DMVs are used as an example in public service seminars as the classic case of how not to give good customer… Read More »
[June 02, 2014] Domino’s Pizza has a commercial out that begins with their product innovator saying, “we know that failure is an option.” The commercial makes the point that in order to get ahead and to get better mistakes will be made. It is the attitude we take to keep our head up and our hearts in the… Read More »
[June 01, 2014] An important way of learning to be better leaders is to listen to other senior leaders talk and ask them questions. We all know the other main way to learn is from the mistakes of others and we have explored this latter way considerably in this leader blog. Prior to the “surge” in Iraq, after… Read More »
[June 01, 2014] Last night in a small New Jersey town, there was a celebration of the 75th anniversary of singing by The Celebration Singers. These singers have been entertaining audiences in the area for 75 years. Their goal is to provide quality musical programs for their audiences and members. Strong leadership works and it worked great things… Read More »
[May 31, 2014] Interim Veterans Administration chief Sloan Gibson stated that the VA as a whole needs “a change in culture.” The scandal of hiding wait times that appears to have resulted in military veteran deaths is shameful. However, the fix is not in better management systems and processes but in the elimination of the VA’s current employment… Read More »
[May 30, 2014] As regular readers know, I travel across the United States and overseas. Spending time in airports is second nature to me and many other military travelers. Airline service is important. Another important supply of services is rental car companies. I have rented from all the major companies in America – too many to count. Enterprise… Read More »
[May 30, 2014] There has been criticism of the Federal School Lunch Program. A number of experts and pundits rightly pointed out the hasty and ill-conceived program rollout. The faults were outlined in an article I wrote earlier (link here). Yet, today some good news for the program. The First Lady wrote an opinion piece for the New… Read More »
[May 29, 2014] The general rule of leadership is to own up to any mistake you make and do so promptly. In particular, this is true for senior executive leaders. Reasons for admitting your mistakes are many and will be listed here. Exemptions, however, for not admitting a mistake are exceedingly rare. One unfortunate exemption to admitting ones… Read More »
[May 28, 2014] If you want to learn lessons in leadership, don’t watch a movie. That has always been my advice to young leaders. In other words, leadership is learned from relevant, practical experience, not from the comfort of your sofa, observing it from afar. I will admit however, there are a few gems of leadership buried elsewhere… Read More »
[May 28, 2014] The point of this blog has been to articulate those key leader characteristics that set senior executive leaders apart from the ordinary leader. Yet, taking a bit of a twist on this logic, people ask me all the time, “what are those things that great leaders don’t do in order to avoid failure?” My original… Read More »