The AntiSyphus Effect

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday! Sit for a spell, and enjoy some excellent writing from the business blogosphere:

David Master of Passion, People and Principles has a thought-provoking piece on business ethics.

Carmine Coyote of Slow Leadership reminds us that what goes around, comes around.

George Ambler of The Practice of Leadership lists seven failings of really useless leaders.

Rocky of Hillbilly PhD asks what motivates people to work (hat tip: Phil Gerbyshak).

Bud Bilanch - the Common Sense Guy - suggests that great leadership starts at home.

Finally, Phil Gerbyshack of Make it Great! gives us a horrible (and yet pretty darned funny) account of customer service run amok.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Favorites

It's Friday again, and we all know what that means: time for Friday Favorites!

Pamela Slim of Escape from Cubicle Nation has two big pieces of news.

Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World gives us The Asshole Rating Self-Exam.

Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist, keeping with the self-diagnostic theme, shares tips on recognizing your inner nutcase.

Have a great weekend!

Them's good reads!

Now that I've had a chance to read through the entries in this week's Carnival, I thought I'd share my favorites from the many fine entries. In no particular order, they are:

• Debt Free poses an interesting question: Could Congress shut down your blog?
• Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog explains how to get the most out of networking.
• Rob of Business Pundit suggests that fairness is the key to good leadership.

Happy reading!

The Carnival is up!

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is hosted by John of Mighty Bargain Hunter. There are over 30 entries in this week's Carnival, and I'm happy to be among them.

Go have a read.

Friday Favorites

This week sure flew by! We interrupt the series on RCA to bring you Friday Favorites; the weekly entry in which I direct you to go visit the best blog posts I read during the prior week.

Top billing this week goes to George Ambler of The Practice of Leadship, for his post on how to tell if your boss has an attitude problem.

Running a close second is Bob Sutton, who reminds us that power really does corrupt (which is a nice complement to my posts on high-altitude management). I've decided that Bob is my hero, and I hope I get the chance to meet him someday and shake his hand.

Next up, Curt Rosengren of The Occupational Adventure tells us that we can sometimes find our best voices when we're not shooting for perfection from the starting bell.

Jodee Bock from You Already Know This Stuff asks: What's RIGHT With You Today?

Alexander Kjerulf, aka Chief Happiness Officer, asks: Should you work for a year in a job that sucks?

Carnival Time

It's time again for the Carnival of the Capitalists, hosted this week by the very entertaining and informative hosts of Long or Short Capital. Alas, after being so proud of myself for making it into the list of most enjoyable articles in last week's edition, I didn't make the cut this time out. What's that saying? Pride goeth before the fall, I believe.

I really can't complain, though, because this week's Carnival contains some outstanding entries, my favorite being an entry from Trusted Advisor on how American Idol empowers incompetent people (and how businesses tend sometimes to do the same).

Go check out this week's Carnival - you'll be glad you did.

Friday Favorites

Welcome to Friday Favorites. If you're new here, each Friday I like to give a shout-out to the blog postings that spoke to me that week (assuming I have time during the week to keep up with the blogosphere at large). I've decided that I love this photo so much that I'm going to use it as the standing graphic for Friday Favorites (image from iStockphoto - a terrific source for reasonably-priced downloadable images). With no further delay, here are the blog posts that most caught my fancy this week:

• Scott Ginsberg of HELLO, my name is BLOG, gets two posts on my list this week for his two-part series on sticky note motivation: Part I, Part II.
• Matthew Paulson of Getting Green says "Don't buy that new car!" in an entry that questions the wisdom of having a car payment. I'm a firm believer in inexpensive transportation. Sure, everybody laughed when I bought a $9,000, year-old Ford Focus (that gets 30+ miles per gallon), but that was before gasoline prices spiked; to quote Ira Gershwin, who's got the last laugh now?
• Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist reminds us that office politics doesn't have to be a fool's game.
• Carmine Coyote of Slow Leadership tells us to slow down and think.
• Last, but certainly not least, Steve Farber of Extreme Leadership suggests reading your company's mission statement with a different perspective.

Have a great weekend!

Blatant self-promotion

I'm featured as one of the authors in this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, hosted by the terrific David Maister. I take particular joy out of making it into David's list of articles he enjoyed the most.

Of course, I only made # 9 on said list (but hey, that gives me something to aspire to, yes?).

There's some excellent writing to be found over at the Carnival, so I recommend you go over and take a look; I have a feeling I'll be adding a few new folks to my blogroll.

Thanks for the kind words, David.

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday! I love reading blogs; other writers inspire me, educate me, make me laugh, and make me think. There was some terrific reading available in the business blogosphere this week, and here are some of the posts that I loved:

• Carmine Coyote of Slow Leadership has a multi-post series on success.
• Everything that Kathy Sierra writes is worth reading; but this post about Apple's iPhone made me giddy. I want one; I really, really want one.
• Pamela Slim of Escape from Cubicle Nation gives us some thoughts on smoking crack (in the metaphorical sense, that is).
• Scott Ginsberg - that nametag guy - reminds us how important it is to be accessible to our customers.
• Bob Sutton writes about Bob Nardelli's exit from Home Depot (hint: if people are actually high-fiving over your departure, you may want to rethink your approach to management).

Have a terrific weekend!