Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Do more transnational companies mean an end to future war?

In the research paper, Death of the Global Manager, by Julia Hanna, Harvard Business School professor emeritus Christopher A. Bartlett says. "How does it (a transnational company) move beyond its role as an economic entity and recognize itself as a key player in the sociopolitical environment in which it has responsibility as well as power?"

As we move toward a working environment where many people interact with others across the globe, will there come a time when citizens will prevent (democratically-elected) governments from attacking their coworkers' home countries? In the US, large corporations have tremendous influence over government actions; as organizations grow, will they increase their influence over other governments? As marketers and designers and managers gain understanding of consumers and employees in other countries, could that understanding lead to enhanced relationships among the countries' leaders?

I can hope, right?

Friday, August 5, 2011

confidence without competence a dangerous thing

"difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence"*

And then what do we do with that confidence? We act on it. But we haven't built the brain muscle to act appropriately. Self-esteem is good but it seems sometimes we put the cart before the horse when we give people (and ourselves) easy tasks so that they can succeed and feel good about themselves. We've done no one any service when we promote someone who isn't really capable, applaud mediocre work, hand out awards to those who showed up rather than holding them accountable to difficult goals.

Would you expect to be able to run a marathon because you can run around the corner without getting out of breath?

What can we do to encourage others, and ourselves and our children to try the difficult challenges, yes, maybe fail, and applaud the effort while encouraging them/us to try again?

*From: Come On, I Thought I Knew That! By Benedict Carey (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewanted=1)

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Eliminate time wasting activities

Now, as for the tasks that you're engaged in that are neither important nor urgent, well, it's time to ask yourself, "why am I doing this?" Listen, everyone needs a little Angry Birds time in his day. But not every day and not for more than 10 minutes -- especially if you also need a little Facebook time and a little Twitter time and a little . . . . well, you get the idea.

Pick one timewaster per day and set your computer's timer or alarm system to go off after 10 minutes. That's about all any of us needs to spend in the fourth quadrant.