Despite being a child of the 60s and 70s, I didn’t read Saul Alinsky until recently. I did so after several pundits (Salon.com, New York Times, Politico.com) suggested that the Alinsky, so vilified these days by Republican presidential candidates, provides a playbook for the tea party… Read full post »

The Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of the effort yields 80 percent of the results. Similarly, many of my friends and clients have heard me say, “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.” I’ve seen a couple good variations on that recently.

“The Done Manifesto is a/… Read full post »

As comedy memoirs go, Tina Fey’s Bossypants has a ton of great management advice. Where she really excels, though, is in her essay on how improvisation can change your life and, I would add, your workplace behavior.

Here are her four rules of improvisation:

• AGREE. If your coworker
… Read full post »

Attending a couple recent conferences I concluded that, rather than enhancing communication, Powerpoint impedes it in sometimes-fatal ways. When I started writing this post, it was going to have a series of tips on how to make better Powerpoints. Then I thought I was going to ask you to abandon it… Read full post »

What is the biggest expense for associations and nonprofits?  Salaries.  The product these businesses deliver is service, and service comes from people.  Yet I have seen many organizations over the years that evaluated the success of their programs without accounting for the most expen… Read full post »

Knowing a lot can be a barrier to being an effective leader.

I often write about my involvement in community theater.  At Stagecrafters, I’m the chair of the Builder’s Guild, which is the group of guys – and I mean guys – who build our sets.  Now, I know… Read full post »