Category: Business

“Another thing they don’t teach you in design school is what you get paid for…Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace…Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali. The complicated process is worth money. That’s what clients pay for.” —Paula Scher

“A self-disciplined employee will have the patience to conduct routine business routinely, the talent to respond exceptionally to exceptional circumstances, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  — Richard Branson

Interesting interview with Andrew Cosslett, CEO of InterContinental Hotels Group, in Sunday’s New York Times in which he made a couple of observations pertinent to any business executive:

About staying in touch… “I was about 24, I ended up with Unilever, and the first job was selling ice cream in Liverpool … I learned more in those nine months than I think I’ve ever learned since. Unilever used to test their graduates as they came in — they wanted to see if we had the stamina to hang around doing the more routine stuff. Are you going to be patient, and not be recognized as the bright young thing all the time?

“So I was given this job working for Wall’s Ice Cream, one of the subsidiaries of Unilever. I had 600 small shops to look after and a Ford Escort … The biggest thing I remember from those days, other than the utter loneliness of being a salesman with customers who abuse you all the time, was how much of what comes out of corporate offices is of absolutely no purpose, and how far removed some people are from the front line.

“I was out there expected to sell this ice cream in the middle of winter in Liverpool. It was pretty tough, and I was in there trying to sell these two-pound ice cream cakes because head office said that’s what we had to sell. I remember saying that if I ever get somewhere, I will never forget how this feels and this sense of remoteness. I now routinely test myself to make sure I’m not forgetting.”

Career advice for the young… “Leave home. Go as far away as possible from what you know. I think you’ve got to be tested, and you’ve got to test yourself. So my best career advice would be life advice. Go and find out who you are and what you can deal with and put yourself in some positions that will be distinctly uncomfortable. Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great learning in life.

“The second would be: keep asking questions. There’s a lot of perceived wisdom in most industries that haven’t hasn’t been challenged for years. The trick in business is not to care too much. Because if you care too much, you won’t ask questions and you won’t challenge because you’ll care too much about your position and what someone’s thinking about you. I was always relatively cavalier in my early career because I always thought if I don’t make it in business, I’ll go and do something else anyway. I always have given 100 percent to everything I’ve done, but I’ve always had a slightly maverick side that actually stood me in great stead, because it enabled me to ask those difficult questions and be the burr under the saddle.

“The third one is: have a sense of humor. It’s a lot easier to get through most things if you’ve got a smile on your face. It doesn’t have to be a chore. So just lighten up.”

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”  — Ellen Goodman

This is a fantastic post from TheSimpleDollar.com:

“Successful people attempt to minimize the time and money they spend on things that do not provide genuine value to them or to others. They also look for ways to spend their time and money on things that provide more value to them or to others than whatever it is they’re currently doing.  This requires focus. You have to evaluate everything you do in a given day. “Why am I doing this?” “Is it something that I really personally value?” “Is it adding value to my life?” “Is it adding value to the lives of others?” “How much value am I really getting from this in terms of personal growth, financial gain, or relationships built?”

Asking those questions will lead you to some surprising revelations. For me, for example, I found that spending twenty minutes with my eyes closed in a dark room while trying to focus on clearing my mind of all thoughts was far more relaxing (and thus valuable) than an hour spent watching television. I found that making dinner for my family (and often with them involved in the process) added far more value to my life than the time spent going out to dinner with them. I found that getting adequate sleep each night was far more valuable than cutting an hour of sleep out to “get more done.” I found that practicing the piano was just as relaxing and far more valuable (for me) than that same amount of time spent playing World of Warcraft. I found that spending some time each week reading and some time writing a short story or two was more valuable than spending that time forcing myself to write something strictly based on personal finance.”

>> Read the full article

“In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct.” – Robert Cialdini

I just read about pluralistic ignorance, which I found fascinating.  According to Wikipedia it is: “A situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it… It is, in Krech and Crutchfield’s words, the situation where ‘no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes. “This, in turn, provides support for a norm that may be, in fact, disliked by most people.

Pluralistic ignorance can be contrasted with the false consensus effect. In pluralistic ignorance, people privately disdain but publicly support a norm (or a belief), while the false consensus effect causes people to wrongly assume that most people think like them, while in reality most people do not think like them (and express the disagreement openly).

For instance, pluralistic ignorance may lead a student to drink alcohol excessively because he/she believes that everyone else does that, while in reality everyone else also wishes they could avoid binge-drinking, but no one expresses that due to the fear of being ostracized. A false consensus for the same situation would mean that the student believes that most other people do not enjoy excessive drinking, while in fact most other people do enjoy that and openly express their opinion about it.”

I’m sure my workplace is like yours and if that is true, I see pluralistic ignorance daily.  How great would our society and the companies we work for (or run) be if we publicly (not privately) rejected something we disagree with.  How great would it be if everyone realized everyone doesn’t think like us (note: I think I tend to suffer from the false consensus effect)?  Your way of thinking may not be popular, but privately others may actually be supporting what you disdain.  Is the secret to take a stand and speak up?  I’m still learning…

We’ve all heard the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned” but I don’t think too many people really stop and think about that.  I read this and thought how true it is.  Make smart decisions in life everyone.  I’ve tried my best…sometimes it is easier said than done and life throws you a few curve balls to set you back.  If I’ve learned one thing in life it is to expect the unexpected.

“At age 25, Jim makes $100,000 a year. He’s constantly traveling for business. He has a large home in which he often doesn’t visit some rooms for months at a time. He eats out every single night. He drives a leased Lexus, which he updates every few years at the end of the lease. He buys a whole new wardrobe every six months, taking the leftovers to Goodwill. He spends everything he brings in.

At age 25, Bill makes $35,000 a year. He lives in a smaller home and doesn’t travel much. He makes most of his own meals at home. He drives a Toyota Corolla, which he owns free and clear. He wears clothes until they’re worn, then shops at Goodwill for replacements, often picking up Jim’s barely-worn clothes. At the end of the year, he usually has about $5,000 of his income left over, which he sticks into his stock investments which earn 8% a year.

In ten years, Jim’s net worth hasn’t grown a cent. In those same ten years, Bill has $72,000 in the bank.

At the twenty year mark, Jim’s net worth still hasn’t grown a cent. In those same twenty years, Bill has built up $228,098 in the bank.

At the thirty year mark, Jim’s still breaking even. Bill, on the other hand, has $566,416 in the bank.

At age sixty five, Jim hasn’t accumulated a cent and will be working for the man for the rest of his life. At the same age, Bill has $1.3 million in the bank and can do whatever he wants for the rest of his life – and probably already started doing that a few years earlier.

It doesn’t matter how much you earn. It matters how much you save.”

>> Read the full article

“If you accept all the praise, you have to accept all the critics.” – Chris Brogan