How Elon Musk destroyed a colossal pile of cash in six months: Culture Clash
Writing this week is John Graham. He co-founded Guildmaster Consulting, specializing in management coaching. For more content like this, check out Guildmaster’s blog and follow them on LinkedIn. By now, it seems pretty clear that Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is a disaster of epic proportions. He’s lost billions of dollars, and Twitter engineering is […]
Three Keys to Being a Customer-Centric Leader
[By Ariel Simpson, originally published May 2021 at EngagedAgility.com] When creating a new product or service or even an entire business, it’s common to make profit your goal. How can you stay in business without making money? But focusing on profit is likely to take you down a toxic path full of cost-cutting, unwanted products, and […]
Urgent vs Important: How to Make Your Goals Reality
Imagine driving down the highway drinking a warm cup of coffee. There are a lot of cars around you, and you’re cruising at about 65 MPH. Suddenly you hit a speed bump and spill coffee down the front of your shirt. Your brain processes that something urgent has occurred: warm, staining coffee has unexpectedly spilled […]
Mr. Miyagi vs. Professor Xavier: Which Leader are You?
[By Ariel Simpson, originally published December 2019 at EngagedAgility.com] Lately I seem to be hearing the same question from everyone I meet: how much expertise does a leader need? Just in the past month I’ve heard the question from my boss, from my mentor, from the book I’m reading (Linchpin by Seth Godin), and from […]
The Best Bike Frame Maker in the Land
[By Ariel Simpson, originally published February 2021 at EngagedAgility.com] I vividly recall my first Agility coach preaching to me, “Don’t get five projects halfway done; get one project completely done.” “But that’s less than half the productivity!” I sputtered. “Yeah. Except that five half-way done projects deliver zero value to my customer.” This concept made […]
Improve More, Experiment Better
[By Ariel Simpson, originally published October 2019 at EngagedAgility.com] Imagine a scientist in a white lab coat, two beakers in hand. You ask what she’s doing, and she says, “I’m conducting an experiment!” When you ask what the experiment entails, she responds, “I don’t know! I’m going to combine these liquids and see what happens!” […]