An executive I once reported to made something very clear: His job was to focus one to five years out, my job was to focus three to 12 months ahead, and the people reporting to me were to focus on the current quarter. I remember being somewhat relieved by this limited responsibility, thinking, “I can’t
On January 18, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket with four crew members to the International Space Station. It’s another successful mission for SpaceX. Behind its explosive growth, of course, is the sometimes volatile CEO Elon Musk whose tirades are well documented in Walter Isaacson’s biography and elsewhere. Isaacson also describes the numerous people who
Nat King Cole will remind us this month to be joyful, though life can be busy and hard, and our news feed reminds us of all that’s wrong in the world. This is why I love re-watching It’s a Wonderful Life each year. I need yet another voice to break through the cynicism, hurry and
T.S. Eliot wrote what is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, “The Waste Land.” Even so, Eliot himself attributed much of its success to the support of his editor, Ezra Pound. Pound never held back when confronting Eliot with feedback on his writing, and Eliot appreciated that. In
A colleague recently made an important decision that affected me without asking for my input. It wasn’t the first time this happened and probably won’t be the last. It seems to be a pattern, to make decisions without involving others when the decisions impact others in meaningful ways. The question I’m wrestling with is: Should
One summer while away at college, my roommate and I rode our bikes 10 miles through the city of Boston to the ocean. We randomly arrived to see streams of elegantly dressed people moving toward a large pavilion. “What’s happening?” we asked. “John Denver concert!” Wow, we thought. This looked incredible. To see John Denver
I didn’t use ChatGPT to write this article, unlike my last one. However, I’ve been thinking about ChatGPT “prompt engineers” who make close to $350,000 without any previous professional experience. Essentially, a prompt engineer asks ChatGPT really good questions in order to get really good responses. Call them AI Whisperers. It makes me wonder, do
Animals in the wild tune their senses to any threats or environmental changes. Likewise, human beings process many signals from others, and the brain’s amygdala activates what it deems to be appropriate fear or avoidance responses. For instance, if I notice what appears to be someone multi-tasking in a meeting while I’m presenting, my amygdala
In my last post I considered how predictable emotional regulation contributes to trust and influence, especially under stress. Here we’ll look at how effective interpersonal interpretation, especially under stress, further contributes to trust and influence. Let’s face it, even the smartest humans aren’t capable of processing all the data around them at any given time.
I recently joined one of my clients for a Zoom meeting with participants from three departments in their organization. As discussion of the topic got underway, it quickly became apparent to me from my vantage point as an outsider that one department had the power, one felt marginalized, and one didn’t really care. In fact,
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE