459 Posts found for Source: Fast Company

Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Success / Failure

Bill Schley, author of Why Johnny Can’t Brand (Portfolio, November 2005), says branding “is not what you say but what you do.” But what a company does is already, well, what it does! To brand, in a corporate sense, is no more a verb than “to gorgeous.” A brand is a result, not a tactic. One cannot go about branding an organization or a product … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Brand, Marketing / Sales

In a knowledge economy, companies with the best talent win. And finding, nurturing, and developing that talent should be one of the most important tasks in a corporation. So why does human resources do such a bad job — and how can we fix it?

Content: Article | Author: Keith H. Hammonds | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Human Resources

Will business-book summary services give you an edge? If so, which one is best?

Content: Article | Author: David Lidsky | Source: Fast Company

When people hear you complain, they take it as permission to complain, too. Whatever misgivings you have about a client or a superior, keep them to yourself. Complaining deflates morale, makes you look weak, and creates an environment that breeds negativity like a contagion.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The biggest interpersonal flaw in any manager’s tool kit is the constant overriding need to win. When you’re the boss, you can afford to ease up. Cede a debating point, an execution of an idea, even ownership of a concept at least once a day, and you’ll have people praising your open-mindedness and feeling that much more free to think boldly (because they know you … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Odds are you’ve run across one of these characters in your career. They’re glib, charming, manipulative, deceitful, ruthless — and very, very destructive. And there may be lots of them in America’s corner offices.

Content: Article | Author: Alan Deutschman | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Organizational Behavior

A Web-exclusive Q&A with Richard Florida, author of The Flight of the Creative Class

Content: Thought Leader | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Management

A simple test: Who does your company’s vice president of human resources report to? If it’s the CFO — and chances are good it is — then HR is headed in the wrong direction.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Human Resources

On crisis, facts, and fear.

Content: Article | Author: Alan Deutschman | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Change Management

Change is not about understanding new things or having new ideas; it’s about seeing old things with new eyes — from different perspectives. Change is not about reorganizing, reengineering, reinventing, recapitalizing. It’s about reconceiving! When you reconceive something — a thought, a situation, a corporation, a product — you create a whole new order. Do that, and creativity will flood your mind.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Change Management, Creativity

A candid conversation with the CEO of General Electric about leadership, creativity, fear — and what it’s really like to run the world’s most influential company.

Content: Thought Leader | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Management

Bonuses and pay-for-performance plans can even be problematic when people believe that every move they make is going to affect their compensation. In those situations, people tend to get risk averse. Of course, people need to feel that they’re being compensated fairly. But our research shows that people put far more value on a work environment where creativity is supported, valued, and recognized. People want … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Edward Lazear, an economist here at Stanford, came up with the [tournament model of careers]. If you think about a typical tennis or golf tournament, it begins with a bunch of people in the first round, whose winners then advance to the second round, etc. until you finally get to the end. In the initial rounds, you’ve got some people who are really good and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Career

Marcus Buckingham spent two decades studying great business leaders. His conclusion: True leaders have a unique ability to make things simple.

Content: Article | Author: Bill Breen | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Leadership

Men have always recognized that you really have to make choices. Women have deluded themselves into thinking that you don’t. This is not to say that you can’t have a decent family life and an interesting job as well. People who are working part time in professional jobs are having a much happier time than if they were home working full time as mothers or … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Women in Business

I think that most of our intelligence is based on pattern recognition. Human thinking is actually not very good at logical and analytical thinking. We are very good at recognizing patterns.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Intelligence, Thought

Nothing demotivates people like the equal treatment of unequals.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Very early on, the founders of startups make an important choice. Do they want success or control? Neither is bad so long as the choice is explicit. I’ve picked success. And success implies giving up control — hiring people who are much better than you, or being willing to be the janitor if that’s what’s required.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Entrepreneurship

We grow because you can’t otherwise provide an opportunity for talent. You have to provide that, or else change your view of who your talent should be.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior