More than a living

Some people call me “underwhelmed,” but fact of the matter is I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve.
Negative feedback or lack of progress or failure often crushes me. At first.
But then, it becomes the seed of motivation.
Take sixth grade for example.
One day, Ms. Elton took me aside.
“Your handwriting,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
Okay, now […]

Whew. I’m about pooped out. As we try to get the final touches on Kumquat, I’m also kicking off a consulting project for a client in which I’m emotionally invested. Exciting things are afoot, but it feels like there are quite a few plates spinning.
It’s amazing to me how much effort goes into getting something […]

I’ve been a tad under the proverbial weather, as of late. I do thank Amy and Toby for doing such a brilliant job of keeping the conversation moving right along during my absence.
But as I lay convalescing in my delusional state, I remembered one of those things that I always ignore until I’m sick. “What’s […]

I was reading the daily Incentive Intelligence entitled “Internal Motivation vs. External Influence“, which in a nutshell says you can’t apply external pressure to get people motivated - this is something that comes from within.
[M]otivation is an internal thing. You cannot create motivation - you can create an environment where people are motivated to […]

The Chief Happiness Officer has offered to give away free PDFs of his book, Happy Hour is 9 to 5, to the first 50 100 people to comment on the post entitled, “Is your workplace unhappy? Get my book for free.” You’re also allowed to spread the joy, as it were, to anyone in the […]

For many of us, working from home holds a great deal more appeal than sitting in a noisy–or worse yet, deathly silent–cube farm, day-in, day-out.
I know that I’m more productive here than I ever was in the office. And I hear many folks echoing the same sentiment. And when you cut the commute down from […]

The report on the rise of small businesses noted in Rick’s recent post got me thinking about why people leave or avoid corporate jobs in favor of something more personal. Many of us aren’t interested in working for large globo-corp companies that may be headquartered far away, staffed by thousands of employees you’ll never know, […]

Turnover blows. Here is how you can prevent the pain - forever:

Hire incompetent people - no one else ever will. They will be yours to keep until the day they retire.
Promote people beyond their abilities.
Always eliminate training first in budget cuts. Training only enhances peoples’ self worth and sense of mobility.
Describe your micro-management practices in […]

This really did start out as a comment to John Moore’s Brand Autopsy entry entitled Is it Making Money or Making Meaning? But I just kept writing and writing and writing. So I thought I’d move it over here.
In the post, John argues that employees join a company to make meaning but stay with a […]

(Hat tip to Kathy Sierra for Creating Passionate Users: Rhythm method)
One of the problems with driven employees is that they think they should be working–all of the time. I know, because I think I should be working all the time.
But here’s the thing: there are going to be down times. Times when no work gets […]