August Turak
3 Keys to Competing
When we consider “the competition” as other companies offering similar products we are only partially right. There are three levels to competition and our direct competitors are only the first and most obvious.
3 Factors to Avoid Fear in Every Challenge
Does every challenge require wisdom, equanimity, and detachment…including picking a spouse? Dear August, When we met, you told me “Every challenge from picking a stock to picking a spouse requires wisdom, equanimity, and detachment if these decisions are to be based on fact, not fear.” Does this read right for picking a spouse? Or does [...]
The Confession of a Serial Stereotyper: How to Stereotype Your Way to Success
As a lifelong student of human nature I have some very strong opinions on the subject. As a result, I often meet people who flourish, “That’s a stereotype!” like a trump card. In a single stroke I’ve been found guilty not only of faulty logic but faulty morals as well.
It’s Not What We Think but How We Think: 3 Leadership Lessons from the IBM Executive School
About a year after we started our company an ice storm shut down the city. Yet despite some hilarious misadventures that were quickly embedded into our corporate mythos, we all made it to work. Three days later I ran into a friend at the gym who worked for the state of North Carolina. Surprised to see him during business hours, he told me that state employees were still off for the ice storm.
“I don’t get it.” I blurted forgetting my manners. “You can’t get to work but you get to the gym?
Giving Away Credit, Is It Worth It?
My first service and selflessness business lesson came as a complete surprise. Somewhere a voice started yelling, “Speech! Speech!” and instantly it was echoing throughout the room. I was just 23, only four months into my first “real” job flogging 3M copy machines, and had just been named the New England region’s “Salesman of the Month.” Utterly unprepared, I stumbled to the podium and [...]
Moving People Means Moving Products
In his presentation for Eastman Kodak’s slide projector, Don Draper introduces nostalgia, as a “delicate but potent” way to create a “deeper bond” between product and consumer. He says the word “nostalgia” comes from Greek for “the pain from an old wound.” Nostalgia, according to Draper, evokes something much stronger [...]
The College Question
I’ve often wondered if college makes people successful or successful people go to college. If smart, driven people seek out college then we have the cause/effect reversed. I remember a study done years ago on [...]
