One might wonder why I would choose to write about an issue of women and board seats just after taking on a new role as a corporate director of a public company. So before you read this post I’ve just done over at Harvard (below), I want to take a minute to share my context. [...]
Tag Archives | Culture
Stop Blaming the Systems
The next time a customer service rep says, “The computer won’t let me do that” or “The system tells me what to do,” remember this: Behind every such phrase is a set of processes designed, or at least endorsed, not by computers but by human beings somewhere in the corporate hierarchy. The system may tell [...]
Be Unhappy
When you want to be healthy, you could focus on the good stuff you want; maybe you work out and eat healthy to have toned arms, or firm abs, or even a certain weight on the scale. But if you are unhealthy today and you are going to change your habits, you have to first [...]
Normalcy is a Unicorn
We want to be normal. We want to fit in. We all do. Just last week, as I was packing for my first Board of Director meeting, I couldn’t decide what one wore to a BoD meeting, and got all befuddled. In this small way, and in many big ways, we show how much we [...]
The Excuses
When I was getting divorced from my first husband, I spent many months reliving the past. These mental hamster-wheel moments were accompanied by sleepless nights, too much scotch, and – to complete this picture in all it’s transparency—family-size bags of Lays BBQ potato chips. During these long nights, I would try and re-imagine each crucial [...]
The Success Equation
Human stuff — the soft stuff — is rarely valued. We talk about it, sure. But we don’t change it. We don’t reinvent it. We give lip service to it but, when times are tough, we focus on the hard stuff. We manage numbers because it’s easier. We say we value people but we focus [...]
We Can’t Agree to Disagree
If [fill in the person] thinks I’ve bought in, they’re crazy.” “Even if [fill in the group] doesn’t believe in our current vision, they’ll believe when they see it.” “I don’t think [fill in the project] even matters to our customers.” These are not the kinds of comments any of us utter if we know [...]
Culture Trumps Strategy, Every Time
Trust, fights, and child care. When I’m advising start-up teams nowadays, I ask a lot of questions around those three areas. Which makes it sounds more like a marriage counselor’s office, rather than a boardroom, right? Quite often, the teams I’m talking with think culture is some woo-woo stuff that doesn’t make any difference in [...]
Love & Brands
A friend running brands for a big giant software company sent me a note asking if I knew someone who had 10 years of expertise doing FaceBook/Twitter marketing. Anything strike you as seriously wrong about that? Just think for a minute and you’ll get it…. Yes, that’s right. Twitter only started in [...]
Three Times You Have to Speak Up
It was said of Abbot Agatho that for three years he carried a stone in his mouth until he learned to be silent. I was thinking about that story by Thomas Merton during a recent board meeting. The CEO and CFO were marching through their 112-slide presentation. Recent market updates, a technical deconstruction of various [...]