Management Of Failure
True to our consumer culture, we believe that the customer is always right. Everything starts and ends with the customer, we believe. Follow the cash, from consumer to investor. If we are cash operations, then the customer is always right. But if we are value-creation...
Company A / Company B (Part 2)
When I recently wrote about Company A / Company B — a how-to, which you can find here — I promised to offer a couple tales about how it worked for others. (If you are not on Net Cotton Content, you can find the original post...
Company A / Company B (Part 1)
April Fools Day was the 10th anniversary of the end of my so-called career in marketing and advertising. But this isn't about that. This is about what I was doing when I was pretending to run the advertising agency -- and since. For a couple decades (possibly longer),...
Lead Thyself
It's not enough for leaders to lead others. Leaders must also lead themselves. If you are calling for your colleagues to develop themselves, show them how. Go first. Be a role model in self-development. A Milestone Of Adulthood We are no longer solely the student. We...
When women have a seat at the table, the conversation changes.
If you think the world is out of balance, you might be wondering, "But what am I to do about it?" Here's what Alisa and I are doing about it... We are investing in the development of women in political leadership. Alisa and I believe we need a new generation of...
The Green Fields of the Mind
[Longtime readers of Net Cotton Content will recall this seasonal post. With the end of another baseball season, "it must follow, as the night the day." Feel free to skip the next few paragraphs. But read, below, "The Green Fields of the Mind."] When I began at Yale,...
SMARTY Goal Setting for Wingnuts (2018 edition)
Here's an annual message in a bottle: it's time to set goals for next year! I'm not the goal-setting type. I prefer to wing it. That's my strength. When it comes to setting goals, I'm a wingnut. Goals seem too limiting. Or too ambitious. Or both. Or neither. In any...
Something’s Got To Give
Feeling too busy? I'm not a fan of the question, "What's going on?" Because it is usually followed by an assumption, "I'll bet you are really busy." Then some add, "Crazy busy, huh?" No. I'm not busy. And I'm not crazy busy. I'm not busy. Bees are busy. I'm just...
Transactional Analysis
A friend recently described Transactional Analysis. I'm no expert. (I haven't even read this.) The General Idea We act in a variety of ways: as a parent, as an adult, as a child. How we behave depends on how we interpret what's happening. And we might interpret what's...
Creativity & Personal Mastery
Hello, friends. Perhaps you met Srikumar Rao during his visits to Columbus during the past couple years. Perhaps you have heard about his teaching at top business schools around the world. Professor Rao has been the central influence -- through encouragement and...