// BLOG
Set Yourself Apart
May 18, 2012
Sometimes I review marketing materials and get bored because “professional” is so often misinterpreted as a straightjacket. Everyone has “years of experience” that will “create value” for their clients through “excellent client service”. Important, necessary, but oh-so-very-dull, isn’t it? In today’s economy, if that’s all you can say about yourself and your practice, you’re in trouble.
Do you ever feel that you’re just one professional in a large sea of clones? Many practitioners wonder how to distinguish themselves from the hundreds or thousands of others occupying the same niche. Though the question may fade through development of specific expertise in a niche, it almost always re-emerges when preparing to grow a practice or is considering some shift in substantive areas.
Lead Yourself First
May 11, 2012
We often discuss leadership as if it is a state or quality that either exists or doesn’t. But the truth is that whether one seeks to become a leader or whether one is already serving in that capacity, leadership develops over time.
A leader’s development tends to proceed through three stages. The first stage is self-management. The second is individual achievement. The third is leading others. Although these three stages are distinct from one another, they may coexist and a leader may move back and forth through these stages at various times.
Today’s discussion focuses on the first stage: self-management or leadership of oneself. Executive coach Sharon Keys Seal, founder of Coaching Concepts Inc., refers to this stage as “leader in the mirror”. John Maxwell has written, “[h]e who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” One of the quickest ways to (more…)
The Start-Up Of You
May 3, 2012
The Start-Up of You
By Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
Styled as a career development book, the central thesis of The Start-Up of You is that a successful career requires an entrepreneurial approach.
Authors Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Ben Casnocha, a young serial entrepreneur, assert that career advancement worked like an escalator in years past: you got an entry-level job, you were mentored and groomed, and as long as you did well enough and weren’t unlucky, you could expect steady advancement until roughly age 65, when you’d move off the escalator to enjoy a comfortable retirement funded by a pension and Social Security.
How’s Your Water?
April 19, 2012
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
I read that little anecdote in a Wall Street Journal adaptation of the commencement speech David Foster Wallace made at Kenyon College. It struck me as amusing at first, but then it struck me as a great teaching story.
Are you living in an environment that you’re not really aware of, just because you don’t know anything could be different? Environment is critical to success, whether it’s success in business or in life. Want to lose weight? You’ll have better odds if your pantry is packed with water and oatmeal than if it’s jammed with sugary sodas and potato chips. Want to know what’s going on in politics? You might prefer to hang around others who care about politics and read the Wall Street Journal than to spend your time watching E! and talking about Snookie.
When it comes to business development, environment is often an unappreciated factor for success. Let’s look at three examples.
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Quotes of the month
April 3, 2012
“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”
~Chinese Proverb
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
~Confucious
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”
~Henry Ford
“Have a bias toward action — let’s see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.”
~Indira Gandhi