I have worked with authors for more than three decades. Based on my observations, here are 7 characteristics that separate the highly successful ones from the others.
Archive for creative thinking
How to Think Straight
Avoiding Fake News, Group Think, and Other Decision Making Pitfalls
Leaders make tough decisions nearly every day. Too often, they feel rushed or pressured into choices they don’t like and later regret. In this episode, we’ll show you the bad thinking that underlies nearly every bad decision.
New Coke: Anatomy of a Terrible Decision
5 Lessons from One of the Worst Product Rollouts of All Time
The Coca-Cola Company’s own website admits that it was probably “a day that will live in marketing infamy.” On April 23, 1985, Coke Chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta announced to 200 reporters that the company would be changing its formula. It would be still be called Coca-Cola, but this “New Coke” would taste better and […]
Leader: Know Thy Biases
3 Ways to Recognize Them and See Around Them
The road sign in my home state of Washington read: “Litter and it will hurt.” I didn’t think twice about it, but our guests from nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, mouthed the slogan out loud and could hardly believe their ears. They were traveling with us to a birthday party of a mutual friend. “Of all […]
Slow That Decision Down
Stop, Take Stock, and Use That Calendar to Your Advantage
“Don’t rush me, sonny! You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles,” warned Billy Crystal, costumed up as Miracle Max in the 1987 classic The Princess Bride. In the movie, that was a laugh line, but it’s not a bad way to think about the decisions you make as a leader. For every decision that […]
What Ike’s Secret D-Day Letter Shows Us About Leadership
3 Things Eisenhower Got Right About Storming the Beaches
D-Day is known as a great victory for the allied forces, the beginning of the end for the Nazis as over 150,000 troops pushed into Europe in the first wave of an invasion by sea. But it easily could have gone the other way. We can learn a great deal from the difference. A draft […]