Tag: leadership

Dear BP: Please Get Out of Your Own Way

How hard can it be? I’m talking about BP’s apparent lack of ability to get out of its own way. Time and time again BP has been able to say or do exactly the wrong thing. Forget about what the oil company could or could not have done to avoid this whole tragic mess. Let’s […]

Your Company Benefits When It Supports the Community

Forgive me for bragging, but I’ve got a group of fantastic coworkers. Many of them were in action again this morning. You see, some of our people volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House here in Nashville today. As I write this, they’ve already served breakfast to the families staying there and another team will be […]

12 Wonderful Lessons from John Wooden

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden died on June 4 at the age of 99. During his coaching career his teams won more than 80 percent of their games. At UCLA, his teams won an astonishing 10 NCAA national championships during his final 12 years of coaching, including seven in a row. Wooden was a talented […]

Do You ‘Own’ Your Job?

I hope I don’t disappoint when I tell you that what you’re about to read isn’t about Tiger Woods, the OctoMom, or anything remotely salacious. Instead, this is about you. Let me share with you a story that Jim Stovall tells in his book You Don’t Have to Be Blind to See. It’s about two […]

Customer Care and Shareholder Value

I saw an article the other day with the headline “Shareholders vs. Customers: Who Comes First?” That got me thinking. What was the answer to this question posed by the author of the article?  My conclusion: You don’t have to choose. If you want to create long-term shareholder value in any business, you must meet […]

Hot List: Bestselling “Organizational Behavior” Books on Amazon.com

Amazon.com updates its list of the bestselling books every hour. Here is a snapshot of what is hot right now, this Monday morning, May 17, in the “Organizational Behavior” section of the “Business and Investing” category. 1.Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The authors of Made […]

What I Learned from My Own Mistakes

In the movies the leading man often was portrayed as the strong, silent type. A man of few words, but those words carried a lot of weight. Think Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry muttering, “Go ahead.  Make my day.” But as I was reminded recently, in business being a man of few words isn’t such […]

Coming Together in Flood-Ravaged Nashville

The greater Nashville metro area, where our company is headquartered, experienced widespread flooding during the first days of May. The devastation was significant. In fact, Tennessee’s governor asked that 53 counties across the state be declared federal disaster areas. When something like this happens, everyone is affected by it in varying degrees. Some of us […]

Sincerity Is Strength

Over the past few weeks, I have been reminded what a powerful trait sincerity can be in the workplace.  Webster’s defines sincerity as “the quality or state of being sincere, honesty of mind, freedom from hypocrisy.” I like that term “honesty of mind.” It strikes me that when you encounter someone who is truly sincere, […]

What You Get from Givin’ Back

I’m in New Orleans for a two-day meeting of the Employers Counsel Network, a group of leading labor and employment attorneys from across the country who write the state Employment Law Letters and Federal Employment Law Insider. One of our members suggested that while in New Orleans we should volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. You […]