I sometimes wish I was a Harvard graduate, that I was a 4.0 type student, that I could still do a mean regression analysis, that I had been a CEO of a major corporate company, and was already being called as a corporate director on boards like Nike, Nordstrom, or Amazon. But I’m not. I [...]
Archive | The Personal Story
More about Nilofer’s back story and path she’s walking as she’s walking it.
Why I’m Glad I Got Fired
I came to be an expert on collaboration because Carol Bartz both hired me and fired me — within 18 months. Here’s what happened. A friend of mine, Godfrey Sullivan, asked me to consider running the operations for the Americas unit at Autodesk. Only sheer politeness kept me from hanging up. Autodesk? Yep. That CAD [...]
Giving Up Swearing, I Swear
Last Wednesday, Christians started Lent. The season of reflection. People give up something dear to them so that when they miss it, they are reminded to seek instead the deep and abiding love of their God. (The Islamic faith has a similar practice based on a month of fasting.) If I were practicing the Lenten [...]
Is TED Elite?
I see a lot of interesting myths perpetuated about TED, and while I risk being seen as a TED-promoter, I want to take them head-on and — perhaps — help address them more directly with a few facts. (Some context about me. I am only a four-time TED conference attendee; pay my own way, etc. [...]
You Spent 10K for THAT?!
I go to several conferences each year, often as a paid keynoter or speaker, but always as an enthusiastic learner. Quite often, I’m disappointed to see that what is ‘on stage’ more a reflection of the sponsorships, rather than insightfully selected great content, well-presented to really s-t-r-e-t-ch the audience’s brains and shape our collective perspective. [...]
Curing the Yackity Yack Disease
At Apple, my best boss* once walked out of a room, after calling a bunch of us “Yackety-Yakers”. Even though I’ve lived in the Bay Area of California since I was 5 years old, I definitely miss a lot of cultural references. I like to blame this on the fact that I don’t watch television, [...]
The Value of Perspective
I switched to doing meetings with leaders as hikes — giving us the space and oxygen to get perspective. A friend and I have been trying to plan our next one. The last time we did this, we figured out a big-ass issue on the business he had just started to lead. It led to [...]
Is My Work Important?
I’ve been helping someone. And helping. And helping. And now I seriously want to stop. You might think, Nilofer, girlfriend — this is easy: Say NO to the next request, and be done. But, you see, I’m in conflict. I like seeing myself as a generous, helpful, and kind person. There have been times [...]
Fearless Learning
By Nilofer Merchant on February 14, 2011 in Culture & Leadership, Entrepreneurship, The Personal Story
To learn, we must be willing to not yet know. And that means we need to stop silently criticizing ourselves and others for not already knowing the answer. When we think we “should” already know, then we spend energy eliminating seemingly conflicting data, information, opinions and stories. Only to never see what we need to [...]
Living the Dream
An entrepreneur & CEO wrote me an email around the holidays that sounded just a bit desperate; enough for me to take time out of family time over the holidays to take a meeting. It took her nearly an hour to unveil her dilemma, slowly revealing what she no longer wanted and then, finally, sharing [...]