Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

There are certain things that you take for granted when working for a corporation or a well run business.  These are usually the things that everyone complains about. They include: Processes and procedures Performance reviews HR policies HR in general. (ha) Templates and forms (e.g., expense reports) Management meetings Required training Etc...  As much as these things take us away from "doing our job," they are part of our job and are necessary to keep a company from becoming a big pile of mass chaos. The foundation of a company has to be stable and part of that foundation includes having a set of standards to live by.  No standards = inmates running the asylum.  No standards = inconsistency.  As Jim Collins said,  "The signature of mediocrity is not unwillingness to change; it's chronic inconsistency."  Businesses are made up of people.  People, by nature, are unique and variable.  Without anything...

Back in the dark ages when I was in business school, I decided to enter a supply chain case competition with a couple of classmates.  As a side note, both of those classmates are now supply chain PhDs.  It's safe to say that I was the not the smartest one on the team. My love for business books existed way back then. I vividly remember working long hours with my teammates and using strategic frameworks that weren't business school standard issued.  I figured that if we were going to win this thing, we should use something that would differentiate us from the other teams.  In this case, it was content provided by the book  Profit Patterns  by Moser, Mundt, Quella, and Slywotzky.  It was coming down to crunch time and I was spewing textbook rhetoric from the book for our case presentation. We were entering that period of working as a team where tensions were running high because of the time crunch and we had nothing in the form of a coherent s...

I was sitting in a class being led by Barry Deutsch  that addressed hiring and retaining talent.  I'm going to say that what I took away from the class is not what he wanted me to take away. That said, I still found the session entertaining because the look of fear from the people in the class around what he wanted them to do was priceless.  In one of our discussions on people, he talked about employees that have the case of the E and E's - Explanations and Excuses . (I love when speakers come up with a mnemonic or something catchy that resonates with a current situation that I am in). Everyone that reads this knows the type of people I'm talking about. Or, if you work in an environment that is solution driven and has a high caliber of talent, you have no idea what I'm talking about. I salute you.  When dealing with people that have a case of the E and E's, the easy thing to do is avoid them. I mean, if you keep going to the doctor and he has no cure as to ...

There is a word that becomes dangerous when declared enough times in a business or organization.  That word is "should." "Well... the process should be to notify our customer, but I've got too many things on my plate."  "We should be monitoring our inventory levels, but our systems don't allow us to get at that information quickly."  "Turnover really should not be this high. We're hiring the wrong people."  The reason that the word "should" is dangerous is because, like in the 3 statements above, an excuse typically follows.  Enough shoulds will equal a lot of excuses.  A lot of excuses equals organizational inaction.  Organizational inaction leads to a culture of purgatory.  Eliminate the word should from your vocabulary.  Replace it with "must" or "can" or "will".   Your organization will begin to move from inaction to action which will lead to the right kind of growt...

One of my favorite comic book characters is Bizarro .  Bizarro is the complete opposite of Superman and everything that he stands for.  Although, in one of my son's comic books, he does everything wrong, yet still manages to save the planet!  Businesses can be the same way. It is possible to do everything the complete opposite of standard and professional practices-- and still make money!  Profitability hides organizational dysfunction, substandard business practices, and a lack of leadership every day of the week. That's a shame. If you have a profitable business, then you are obviously doing something right (or something Bernie Madoff would do.) However, businesses are fragile entities. More than likely if you have found a way to be profitable, there is an 18 year old kid that can code his ass off that is ready to disrupt you in a heartbeat. So even though Bizarro, in this one instance, saved the world, the odds of him consistently doing it are not...

When is the right decision to tap out? If I meant this literally, you would do it before you either passed out, or were seriously / critically injured in a MMA fight.  Since I'm writing metaphorically, this refers to coming to the conclusion that enough is enough and it's time to take massive action and exit your current situation.  I'm not talking about disengaging from your job or work (i.e., just show up, take orders and collect a paycheck.) I'm talking about actively searching to get the f*ck out of your current role or responsibility.  If you are like me, the struggle in situations like these is wondering if your next situation is going to be any better. Also, if you genuinely want to make a positive impact, you really want to believe that you can solve every problem and fix anything.  Before you get too far into a situation, stay present enough when you first start to notice signs of danger.  There isn't a need to list what th...

My commute to work takes 40 minutes to a little over an hour each day.  In hindsight, picking a work location that is equidistant between two major arteries in Atlanta was probably not the right choice.  The fastest way for me to get to work is straight North from my house through a number of lights littered with cars that simulate the Office Space scene of Peter Gibbons switching lanes trying to get to work.  In an attempt to learn something along the drive, I've loaded my phone with audio books and podcasts.  One podcast that I've become addicted to is Tim Ferris's which can be found here .  Fast forward to the point of this post which is that I listened to Tim's interview with B.J. Novak , one of the producers of The Office and more importantly, the author of one of my favorite books, The Book With No Pictures.    In addition to being a successful writer, Novak also helped create an app called The List App. As a recovering management c...