http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm Read Les McKeown's weekly(ish) blog on all things Predictable Success® Les's blog is freely available to everyone - you do not have to be a GPS member to receive or read Les's updates. Know someone else who would enjoy reading Les's Predictable Success® Blog? Use the Tell A Colleague link at the left or bottom of this page. Note: Unless otherwise mentioned, neither Les nor Predictable Success® has any interest in any of the resources mentioned in this blog - we just like 'em! en-us webmaster@getpredictablesuccess.com http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=90 Excellent FT article about Ron Heifetz, possibly the best leadership thinker of today: http://getPS.info/z7 http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=75 In a fascinating article in last month's New York Magazine, Michael Osinski writes about his role in writing the software that high-risk bond traders used to manage their portfolios of CDOs - you know http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=74 Kenny Shopsin's latest book ('Eat Me') is a blast, and a great read for any home cook. In it he writes: "If I were to give the home cook any advice, it would be to cook with the people you are cook http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=73 Great article in Inc Magazine (click here to read it) on how a 36-year-old law professor left his tenured position to run the family business, (eventually) successfully. Proof that a Processor can http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=65 So maybe you've noticed your team / management / board meetings are getting a little tense these days? Understandable, given the current state of the economy, and in any case, managing rocky interacti http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=72 So Jerry Yang has stepped down (again) as CEO at Yahoo. Unfortunately for Yahoo, he should never have taken the post in the first place (he replaced Terry Semel in 2007). As all you Predictable Su http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=71 The US motor car manufacturing industry (that is, GM, Ford and Chrysler - I'm exempting minor players such as Tesla) is a classic example of an industry caught in the Bureaucracy stage of the Predicta http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=70 Howard Schultz, the quasi-founder of Starbucks (currently in Treadmill), returned to the CEO position at the start of this year, and has since been trying to put the genie back in the bottle (in Predi http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=69 I'm not making any political points in what follows - as the pundits would say, I have no dog in that hunt - just interested in the application of Predictable Success in another arena. Politica http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=68 One of the tenets of Predictable Success® is the importance of being ruthlessly constructive. (We discuss it a little here and here.) The concept is simple, and self-explanatory: seek to be con http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=66 Even economic bailouts follow the lifecycle - albeit a considerably distorted version of it. After about 6 weeks of Early Struggle (is it this plan or that plan? Does the government invest or lend? http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=64 Watching the US Congress as it grapples with the current financial crisis is eerily reminiscent of seeing management teams flounder in some of the failed strategic planning meetings I've attended. http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=63 Boardroom Rules 1: The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data' I can't take credit for this saying (it appears to have been coined by a chap called Frank Kostonis), but it is a phrase that succinctly ca http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=62 The other day, while having lunch in Boston with an old friend from the UK, I got a call from the producers of the CNN 'Glenn Beck Show' asking me to come on the show and talk about how to protect you http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=61 So JetBlue Chairman (and founder and ex-CEO) has resigned, formally bringing to an end any chance for his once high-flying company to stay for long in Predictable Success® (see earlier blog entry belo http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=59 The decision by Howard Schultz to reinstate himself as Starbuck's chief executive highlights the difficulties faced by many once high-flying organizations when growth stalls. In Predictable Succes http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=60 This year sees the first substantial arrival of so-called 'Gen Y' into the workplace (they're the kids that were serving you burgers and looking for summer internships during the last three year). http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=58 In Michael Pollan's fascinating book 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' (not directly a Predictable Success-related book, but a worthwhile read nonetheless), he points out that in the US, it takes between seven http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=57 This month's Hemispheres magazine (United's in-flight mag) has a great article about employee orientation - particularly the role of senior executives in making it a worthwhile exercise. A recent s http://www.getpredictablesuccess.com/public/department55.cfm?ID=55 Mission Statements can be useful, or useless. There's rarely an in-between. I love the example at the start of Guy Kawasaki's enjoyable 'Art of the Start' presentation: Useful or useless.