Daniel Pink: What really motivates us

For Profit Colleges under Fire

Information Video on the AGSM MBA (Executive) Strategic Management Year

Jonah Lehrer’s Short Introduction to Innocentive.com and what it means for your education

Understanding Introverts

I discovered a very useful article describing introverts. All managers, especially if they are extroverts can benefit from getting a deeper understanding of introverts.

Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group.
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice? If so, do you tell this person he is “too serious,” or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out? If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren’t caring for him properly. Read more in the Atlantic.

Flat World Knowledge Provides Textbooks for Free

Do you need to learn a new subject but you want to do it on your own and not pay for it. Flat World Knowledge publishes free textbooks if you simply want to read them online and not print them. I found it useful to look up a textbook on project management. For a full category of free textbooks, go to flatworldknowledge.com.

Steve Jobs’s Seven Rules of Success courtesy of Carmine Gallo

PM: I have followed Apple since 1985 and I think Carmine Gallo has correctly identified seven principles that Steve Jobs followed. I am presently doing research on why Apple was such a poorly managed company before Jobs was fired. Anyone who has insight on this, please contact me. When Jobs came back to Apple, lead to company to new success that no one including myself would have predicted.  Here is what Mrs. Gallo has crystallized about Job’s method.

1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, “People with passion can change the world for the better.” Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, “I’d get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about.” That’s how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, “Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?” Don’t lose sight of the big vision.

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn’t have any practical use in his life—until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don’t live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the “A-Team” on each product. What are you saying “no” to? 

5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can’t communicate your ideas, it doesn’t matter. Jobs was the world’s greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It’s so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don’t care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you’ll win them over.

From: Entrepreneur.com

PM: October 25, 2011: Started my research on why Job’s rose from the ashes at Apple by reading the new biography.

More Information on Steve Jobs

Apple put on an 70 min celebration of life of their leader on October 17. All Apple shops around the worlds were close so that employees from all over the world could participate live in the event. Watch the Video here.

The new Steve Jobs biography came out October 24, 2011. It its available electronically for the Kindle

An excellent, on target, review of the book is available on FT.com

Learning From Failure:  From Webvan to Zappos

Rudy Giulani’s Six Principles of Leadership

I am only a moderate fan of Rudy Giulani, but I strongly agree with the 6 (eight) principles of leadership he recently shared at a conference in Sydney as reported in BRW, June 23-29, 2001, p. 50.

1. Leaders have strong belief and vision
You can’t expect to have people follow you if you don’t know where you are going yourself. A leader must convey his vision to his people, “Be clear, consistent and have goals,” he says. Engage your people in the vision. People will help you achieve your vision if they have instrumental in brining that vision through.”

2. Be optimistic and solve problems
“You have to be an optimist. People follow people who have hope and who help solve problems.  The only people who succeed in life overcome problems in and find solutions.”

3. Be courageous
“If you are not afraid, then you’re not alive, because things go wrong. It’s the unpredictable thing that happen, which you will need to be prepared for,” he says.

4. Preparation
Prepare as much as you can so when things go wrong, you’re able to put into practice the techniques you’ve learned. “No matter how much you practice or prepare, something will always go wrong. But by having practices in place, you’re better prepared.”

5. Teamwork
Ask your what are your strengths and weaknesses?  Find people who have the skills to balance out your weaknesses.

6. Communication and Leadership
Everything you say means nothing if people don’t understand you. Leaders establish loyalty, he says, because they are teachers and they motivate people. “Take good care of people who work for you.”

The Northwestern University 2011 graduation you at least want to see on YouTube