Category: Heart on your sleeve
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The overlooked art of the great reply
As a communication medium, email is trickier than most. We can appear evil by accident. We can expect to be ignored. Our message is often lost. Sending email (like sex) is something worth doing well. If we slam a message with no consideration for the human being at the other end, we'll get the contempt…
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TFS: You can’t reap what you didn’t sow–but no guarantees
In "The Illusion of Understanding," Kahneman observes, "A very generous estimate of the correlation between the success of the firm and the quality of its CEO might be as high as .30, … [This] implies you would find the stronger CEO leading the stronger firm in about 60% of the pairs–an improvement of a mere…
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Be careful how you explain yourself, especially to yourself
I've always loved the Whitman quote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Once you accept the idea you have multiple identities, then you may have to get used to being unacquainted with some of them! We shouldn't rush to explain ourselves or have a reason…
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Can big data lead to more equitable hiring, better bosses?
As someone who's suffered job discrimination and terrible management, the news that researchers are studying which factors actually lead to better job performance is great news. Certain jobs may be off-limits to me because the data shows I won't be good at them, and as long as the science is sound, I'm okay with it.…
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Think what your loyalty provides
While I'm not fond of Starbucks coffee, I do admire the Starbucks brand. (Overheard while walking the Freedom Trail in Boston last week: "I have to walk all this way with you and there won't even be a Starbucks.") Increasing evidence shows that it's not the products that we acquire but the experiences we acquire…
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Taking a few months to practice Thinking Slow
I like to think. Seriously, it's one of my 'Stengthsfinder' strengths–which means I'm supposed to use it and develop it. But that's not why I'm launching this project, a multi-month discussion of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow (to be known here as TFS). For me, TFS's biggest revelation was why the marketing profession is…
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Why being able to like a brand is important
Don Peppers has an excellent new post about loyalty management which I quoted below. Normally, I analyze loyalty as an attitude, but Peppers correctly points out that businesses can't usually afford to do that. Nevertheless, customers who buy you because they like you are much more valuable than customers who buy because it's convenient, or…
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For the holidays, give someone power to find music they love
As a loyalty fanatic, I've decided to show some loyalty to my favorite products and services this holiday season. First up, Pandora. I've heard people whine about the ads on Pandora and my response is… for $36/year, you can support one of the finest listening innovations ever developed. You can pick up gift card subscriptions…
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Why recommendations are worth doing fast and specific
In the long run, we need support from our friends and supporters to get along in our work and our lives. Have you ever gotten assistance from someone who did all the wrong things and made matters worse? That's what it's like to get a poorly thought-out recommendation. Good recommendations are specific and useful. It…
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Is there any coherence in your networking?
Meeting new people and keeping track of them is exhausting to me. I do like most of the people I meet and I think it's worthwhile to know them. Sometimes they turn out to be people I enjoy hanging out with. (Amazing, I know.) For quite a while now, I've been practicing 'coherence' when I…
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