Are you Changing Jobs for the Wrong Reasons?

The times when employees stayed in a company for all their careers are long gone. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average baby boomer will switch jobs 10 times. The average number for younger generations will be much larger (I will analyze this in a future post). Employees today want to control their careers even during bad economic conditions. As a result, job changes are inevitable but could potentially destroy a career when decisions are taken without strategic thinking or for the wrong reasons. Surprisingly, even senior executives, with substantial experience in decision taking, make mistakes...
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The graveyard of ideas and the value of being wrong

To be creative, you must be prepared to be wrong. To make great things, you must be prepared to fail. Creativity requires the willingness to think the unthinkable, to articulate the untested, to experiment with the unknown. And you will often be wrong. Making stuff is mostly a trial error affair. In fact, error and failure feed creativity. As the saying goes “good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment”. Why then, are we so afraid to fail? Why is being wrong an embarrassing experience that we try to avoid at all costs? (even at the...
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Only take a NO from someone who can say YES

Any business developer who has successfully navigated through the maze of corporate decision making and purchasing processes can tell you that a deal cannot be closed until it is approved by the person who has the power to say yes. What is also true, but often forgotten, is that an opportunity should not be considered dead until it is rejected by that same person and nobody else along the way.  Yet, it is very common to see sales deals fade away at middle levels of large organizations, rejected by managers who don’t have the power to approve them. This...
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Authority, and it’s limit

Reason, that is. Back in ancient times, the classical period arose when the authority of god was displaced by reason. Today, we are lucky to have almost gotten rid of the first, in the context of business at least. However, the very problem of authority versus reason is still there, taking various forms to influence our actions. Quite frequently, for example, expertise is at odds with common sense, and I think it is of value to bear this in mind when making decisions. Let’s take an example to make this more clear. You have no expertise on legal matters,...
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7 productive uses of LinkedIn for business development

Veterans of the trade will tell you that a fundamental tool for business development is information. The stereotype of the salesperson who is highly social, talks to a lot of people, listens a lot, asks many questions and knows the backgrounds of people, companies, and entire industries inside out, is because of this fact. You just can’t be effective at business development without knowing and understanding the network of people and companies that you must navigate in order to find and act upon opportunities. Successful networkers and business development experts have been using these tricks of the trade for...
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The middle of the road

Sometimes there’s no “best of both worlds”. The “middle of the road” solution is not adequate, may not even make sense. Sometimes you just have to choose one or the other. Some choices only make sense if you fully embrace them. But it’s tempting to try to build consensus. To avoid taking a stance. To try to please anyone. To cover your ass. To brainstorm. To dilute responsibility and design by committee. It’s so tempting, and so (superficially) democratic, that many organizations have distributed responsibility and decision-making processes in a way that you need to take the middle of...
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