34. Don’t Take Things Personally

This was a new one I had added after the original list was created. This is one of my biggest weaknesses….for some reason, I would always attribute another’s person reaction/non reaction to something I had done.  Which would be ok if it was balanced…but I found I did it when I thought the reaction was negative.  I would often jump to conclusions….someone didn’t answer me back on email right away because they thought my email was stupid.  They didn’t return my call because I wasn’t important enough.  They didn’t stop to chat with me when they walked by my office because they don’t like me. What I realized was that this was almost never the case. I was creating a negative narrative in my head.   Continue reading →

Hello.

Some of you checked in with me just to see how I was doing because I stopped posting. To be honest…I just didn’t know what to say.  To be upbeat seemed glib, to be honest was depressing.  I wrote a couple of posts but just couldn’t bring myself to post them.  But today is different.

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Replacing Presenting

This was an interesting article in the WSJ: “Nine Easy Steps to A Better Day at Work”….the one I really liked was the last one: “Replace presenting with reading.” Apparently, at Amazon, there are no dog and pony shows via Powerpoint. You get a discussion document which is read by the group in silence. Then it’s open for discussion.

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How To Reduce Expenses

Expense reduction is a hot topic right now….I find that the pendulum swings back and forth: focus on investment (revenue growth) vs focus on expenses (margin protection). As an ex-COO in Operations, I’ve only known the expense focus side. Growing up in retail financial services where margin was measured in basis points, it was a never-ending focus on expense management. So what lessons did I learn in reducing expenses?

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