Odds are you work in a factory. Not a traditional factory, with an assembly line and a cartoon-like whistle blowing at each shift change (although you might). Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, sets forth the idea that the majority of us do factory work: we do routine, average anonymous tasks for routine, average, anonymous wages. [...]
Last week I had the opportunity to give a talk at the inaugural IgniteOKC event in Oklahoma City. I chose three essays in the “How to Fail” series and compiled them into the talk you see below. For those of you unfamiliar with Ignite, it is a style of presentation where speakers are given 5 [...]
David Beckham knows something you don’t.
Sure, Beckham knows how to curl a soccer ball 35-yards over a wall of opposing players and have the ball dip into the bottom corner of the goal at just the right moment. But he also knows a bigger secret: as long as he can bend a soccer ball like [...]
I have a colleague who is chronically unorganized. It seems as though every time I talk to her, she is telling me how she forgot to do something or made an error on some piece of paperwork. The other day, we had a meeting over lunch. The rest of us arrived on time and waited. [...]
I have a friend whose boss makes his life miserable. This boss takes no interest in my friend’s professional development or how he can develop as an engineer. Once during dinner, my friend asked me how such an incompetent manager could have been promoted in the first place.
The answer is explained by the Peter Principle.
Professor [...]
In the 1960s, a stranger made history by giving children candy. The man was Walter Mischel, a researcher at Stanford University. He gave children treats as a part of what is now referred to as “the Marshmallow Test.” Mischel would give a group of four-year-olds a marshmallow and promise another if they could wait until [...]
I have a friend who manages a gym. He tells me that the majority of revenue his gym generates comes in the first three months of the year. Every year, without fail, well-intentioned people come in to sign up for a year-long membership. These people intend to make big fitness changes in their life, to [...]
About
David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab, a community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. He is an executive coach, a sought-after speaker and an adjunct professor of business at several universities.