One of my most respected LinkedIn contacts is Phil Rink, a fellow engineer who writes the Jimi & Isaac series of children’s books, and is generally well-informed about anything he chooses to comment on. I just recently finished the second book of his series, Jimi & Isaac 1b: Curve Ball. (I love reading good kids’ books – […]

I just finished Hellcats of the Sea: Operation Barney and the Mission to the Sea of Japan, by Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood and Hans C. Adamson. It’s the account of the attack by the US submarine force on shipping in the previously inaccessible Sea of Japan late in WWII. (New sonar technology allowed the subs to […]

I’ve long thought that nobody can go to work for long in Washington, DC, and remain a useful member of society. This story from the book I’m currently reading, Freedom’s Forge by Arthur Herman, about the industrialists and businessmen who went there in the 1940s to lead the manufacturing charge for WWII production, only helps confirm my […]

Another entry in the “interesting tidbits of history” category… I’m deep in the midst of a riveting book about the industrial side of the US involvement in WWII, Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in WWII by Arthur Herman. An aside in the book involves the medical innovation helped along by Henry Kaiser, who got his […]

Professor Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit posted a link to this article this morning. Read it and weep. As I see it, the author conducted an experiment that showed that doing the opposite of what she’d always done before by speaking directly, establishing firm expectations, being firm and concise, but collegial, she got much better results […]

I’ve repeatedly pointed out the unforgivable leadership failures and lack of ethics demonstrated by the many top-level corporate executives who misuse their companies as platforms to push their personal politics. What do you get when this is allowed to happen again and again? You get employees at all levels of the company with the “correct” […]

It was some months ago that I read a post on LinkedIn by a young woman company founder extolling her women-led workplace. Now, I have absolutely nothing against a women-led workplace – I’ve known a great many women who did or could lead a whale of a workplace. But this particular leader, as part of cheering […]

Professor Barry Brownstein had a superb article this week about government coercion in political opinion that’s part and parcel of socialism. His timing was fortuitous, because big news items highlighted decision-makers in the business world who desperately need his lesson. His piece serves as a stark warning against the current push to have corporations play […]

I’ve commented about this topic on LinkedIn a few times, most recently in response to one of my connections posting this article about why the big established companies can’t innovate. The author, Bill Fischer, called out a number of spot-on roadblocks. His points included some I’ve made in the past, like the destructive focus on […]

My title above is a phrase some coworker friends of mine and I used with some regularity years ago (except our language was usually in “full color,” profanity and all – I’ve grown up some since then). We were all of a mind that nobody should expect a pat on the back for doing the […]