Kent Blumberg

My three most influential teachers

George Ambler's July 18 post about people who make a difference to us reminded me immediately of Frank, Rod and Mike.  Each of these three made an indelible impression on me, and helped mold the way I lead.

More on Evidence-Based Management

In chapter nine of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management, Bob Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer lay out nine steps that can help you start and sustain and evidence-based approach to business.

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense

I have just finished reading Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton (Harvard Business School Press, 2006).  This is perhaps the most useful business book I've read in some years.

Questions to help you communicate

Monique Rissen-Harrisberg, chief executive officer of voice and communication skills training company The Voice Clinic, outlines some key questions to ask yourself in preparing to communicate effectively and concisely (as quoted on this South Africa jobs website).

How to research a company

When you are planning an approach to a company you don't know - either as a potential customer, supplier or partner - or when you want to know more about your competitors, here are some research tools worth using.

[Note:  Updated July 24, 2006 with more research ideas, courtesy of Debra Colwart.]

Learning from failing

I'm a big fan of learning from failure.  Rather than continuing to do what isn't working, it pays to take time to reflect on the underlying reasons for the failure and rethink your approach.  Here's a great posting by Lora Banks on the topic.

Asking Questions

As I have said in earlier posts, I am at my best when I lead with questions.  Two books have been particularly helpful to me in that regard.

When you have to fire someone

A couple I know, proprietors of a small food processing firm, asked me if I knew anything about firing an employee who exhibited unacceptable behavior.  I was about to counsel them to call their HR and legal departments when I realized they were their HR and legal departments.

Questions and Personality Type

The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular personality test.  (See http://www.personalitypathways.com/MBTI_intro.html for more about the indicator.)  Here's a list of questions that each type might ask.  I refer to it to help me look at issues from more than just my own natural viewpoint.

ARIA

Somewhere in my reading over the years - perhaps in The Ultimate Advantage by Edward E. Lawler III, but I'm not sure - I learned to think about employee involvement using the acronym ARIA.