“At the end of the day, all businesses are about people first — because the only way we can build genuinely successful businesses is to build lasting relationships inside and outside the company.” Mary Barra, CEO General Motors Employee experience is a buzzword. Every technology vendor and consulting firm will tell you they have the…
As more and more skilled workers are hired, employers are increasingly having to deal with a thorny issue: setting compensation. In the past, companies set compensation based on a candidate’s education, experience and role. But now that they often hire for skills and potential, the equation has become more opaque. “People are trying to figure…
Time management can be difficult. What is urgent in your life and what is important to your life are often very different things. This is especially true for your health, where the important things almost never seem urgent, even though your life is ultimately at stake. No, going to the gym today is not urgent,…
Pablo Picasso. He is one of the most famous artists of the 20th century and is even a household name to people who, like myself, consider themselves complete newcomers to the art world. Recently, I visited a Picasso exhibition. What struck me most was not any single work of art, but his remarkably prolific output….
Many of today’s organizations have become transactional and dehumanized. The professionals I work with increasingly tell me that they feel their employer treats them more like a human resource than a human being, and we have become so dependent on technology as a means of communication that opportunities to connect and care for each other…
In 1991, Lindsay Davenport played her first professional tennis match. She was 15 years old. Over the next 20 years, Davenport would go on to have one of the greatest tennis careers in recent history. She won three different Grand Slam titles. She won the Olympic gold medal in 1996. She was ranked the No….
Bronnie Ware is a nurse in Australia. She has spent more than a decade counseling dying people. During that time span, she began noting the biggest regrets people feel at their deathbed. After 12 years, she concluded that the most common regret was the following: “I wish I had had the courage to live a…
We humans are not very good at judging true leadership and tend to place arrogant trust in those in charge. Unfortunately, this is often a sign of weakness, and the consequences can be severe for teams. Most of the world’s problems are caused by poor leadership. For example, the death toll from man-made disasters such…
I’ve been trying out a new strategy for building habits, and it works incredibly well. This strategy is remarkably simple and is governed by three simple rules. First, I’ll explain the three rules. Then I’ll explain how I use this strategy, and give you some more examples of how you can put these rules into…
In 1955, Disneyland in Anaheim, California, had just opened when a ten-year-old boy came in and asked for a job. Labor laws were still very lax back then, so the boy managed to get a job selling guidebooks for $0.50 each. Within a year, he transferred to Disney’s magic store, where he learned tricks from…