Archive for the Management Category


A boss who says thanks

Published November 23rd, 2011

Any time a marketing guy sends an email about how awesome his boss is, I react with an emotion that registers somewhere between deep suspicion and utter disregard. But earlier this month I received a note from Christopher Jensen, Marketing Team Lead for Modern Survey, whose CEO President, Don MacPherson, I happen to know. Jensen’s story rang [...]

Income inequality: Is what’s good for the NBA good for your company?

Published November 21st, 2011

On the business pages, columnists are writing about income inequality. On the sports pages, they’re discussing the labor economics of the National Basketball Association. Here at the Pink Blog, we can do both. Take a look at this chart of the 50 highest paid NBA players. These guys make a lot of money – practically CEO [...]

Call my cell

Published November 7th, 2011

On Saturday night, Mrs. PinkBlog and I — along with two-thirds of our progeny — decided to go out for pizza. We chose a place about three miles from our house called Il Canale, which a friend (an Italian journalist posted in the States) had raved about. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But moments [...]

Jim Collins on 3 ways to avoid demotivating people at work

Published October 31st, 2011

Jim Collins — the author of the legendary Good to Great and co-author of the new and equally compelling Great by Choice– has an insightful 3-minute Big Think video describing three ways organizations demotivate their employees. Watch it below or view it on Big Think. Then send a copy to your boss. ** BREAKING NEWS: [...]

How to find great talent: 4 questions for Bloomberg View’s George Anders

Published October 18th, 2011

Here’s a question that bedevils everyone from Fortune 500 boards seeking a replacement CEO to school principals hiring a new algebra teacher, from families looking for a great electrician to baseball teams searching for a better shortstop: How do you find extraordinary, game-changing talent? George Anders is a top-shelf business journalist, a veteran of the [...]

Why progress matters: 6 questions for Harvard’s Teresa Amabile

Published August 9th, 2011

Here’s a tip for rounding out your summer reading. Pick up a copy of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. The book, which pubs today, is one of the best business books I’ve read in many years. (Buy it at Amazon, BN, or 8CR). The authors — Harvard B-school professor Teresa [...]

The Genius Hour: How 60 minutes a week can electrify your job

Published July 18th, 2011

Lots of people believe that a single individual can’t make a difference in an organization. Lots of people, it turns out, are wrong. Take the case of Jen Shefner. She’s an assistant vice president at Columbia Credit Union in Vancouver, WA, in charge of the credit union’s online and mobile services. Last month I met [...]

How to deliver innovation overnight

Published July 5th, 2011

One of the ideas in Drive that has spread the fastest and the widest is the FedEx Day. Invented by the folks at the Australian software company Atlassian, these one-day bursts of autonomy allow people to work on anything they want (as long as it’s not part of their regular job) — provided they show [...]

The 4 Most Overlooked Attributes of Successful Coaches

Published June 20th, 2011

Back in my misspent youth, when I wasn’t watching sitcoms or walking to the library, I spent a big chunk of my time playing teams sports — baseball and basketball especially.  I had coaches, of course, but none of their exhortations, encouragements, or demands made much of a difference or left an impression on my [...]

The (slightly) surprising truth about family-friendly workplaces

Published May 8th, 2011

Do family-friendly policies like childcare subsidies and job sharing increase productivity and profits? Or are they luxuries that hurt the bottom line? A paper (pdf) by Nick Bloom, Tobias Kretschmer, and John van Reenen says the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In their study of more than 450 manufacturing firms in the US and [...]

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