“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” — Hamlet to Horatio
There’s a popular quotation attributed to G. K. Nielsen that reminds me of all the success stories I have read or heard since the start of my career. I won’t deny—I was quite obsessed with the concept of luck. It seems so unusually good that there are successful entrepreneurial heroes with inspiring sagas of having nothing to achieving everything. If not “gifted”, then what else explains such incredible success for such average people?
I have blogged a number of times about psychometric testing and more recently the Judgement Index (JI) (from the world of Axiology or values), but I had forgotten how far back my experience started.
At times, your team needs more than deadlines, perks, and increments. Do you know what it is? Your team members crave for a dose of motivation so that they can continue working in high spirits. For instance, most managers don’t even realise that they might be killing their team’s motivation by using a poor collaboration software.
My first two weeks in my new role as Executive Vice President have been incredibly eye-opening. It's weird to be inhabiting an office that I used to walk clients to, water plants, and straighten chairs in. I have to admit that being a "badass EA" is a mere prerequisite for taking on as huge a responsibility as an EVP. Sure, 99.98% of the skills I attained after 27 years managing the administrative component of the C-suite and execs as a top performing Executive Assistant are seamlessly transferable and likely put me just that bit ahead of my new peer group, with soft skills and hard skills they simply don't have. But there's a whole different level of urgency and pressure to get it right in this role that I had not anticipated, with each decision and move I make having a direct effect on the business.