Take care of your customers. Don’t worry about stockholders or employees. If you take care of customers, everything else will fall into place (Lee Iacocca - Fast Company Magazine interview).

   Rather than debate a new company product or service, just build a prototype! “It’s a hell of a lot easier to just build something than to try to convince somebody who doesn’t believe it’s possible” (Paul Baran, Internet architect, in Wired Magazine).

   If you’re put in charge of a new group, focus on what’s right, not what’s wrong. Along the way, you’ll find out what’s going wrong and fix that (Meg Whitman, eBay CEO, in Fast Company Magazine).

   Use “paired introductions” to speed intimacy in work groups. Teams of two interview each other for 10-15 minutes and then, as a group, everyone introduces their new partner.

   At Capital One, a “fun budget” of $80/employee per quarter is spent on activities such as white-water rafting. (Fortune Magazine).

   Meet with your employees and ask them to share their concerns and develop solutions about security in the workplace. You will gain good ideas and ease employee fears.

   Travel on airplanes with nothing, except paper and pen. You will not only board faster, but the idle time will force creativity, introspection and new conversations.

   Companies can build employee goodwill via a company commitment to local and world causes. Consider blood drives, canned food donations and working at telethons or soup kitchens.

back to articles