During a recent conversation, a friend started talking about a bad experience he had the other day with an overbearing and disingenuous salesperson. He felt like the salesperson’s persona — hair, smile, language, clothing, jewelry, etc. — was just an act only slightly less transparent than that of a circus clown. He described with great disgust how the salesperson was willing to “fudge the numbers” a little to close the deal.
Then my friend said something totally unexpected:
“It’s all this ‘personal branding’ stuff that just makes me sick.” [You can …

As a follow-up to my recent post about the value of a consultant, I wanted to share this related post I just came across from KnowHr entitled “10 Ways to Know It’s Time to Dump Your Consultant.”

clipped from www.knowhr.com

If he says “synergize” more than three times in 5 minutes.
If he’s talking about your business plan on his cellphone earpiece while boarding an airplane.
If he’s so full of himself that he takes his jacket off and tries to hand it to the pilot to hang up. (Sorry, sir, I don’t …

This poster by Anthony Burrill is profound in it’s simplicity. Many organizations have a list of company values that most most employees can’t remember, much less comprehend. This poster conveys values that most people inherently understand, and are easy to remember.
Thanks to the KnowHR blog for finding and sharing this.

One thing I’ve learned in life is that I am not designed to work alone. Two people working together can accomplish far more than those two people working independently. This is one of those truths that almost everybody readily acknowledges, yet quickly forgets.
There lurks within me a streak of independence that loathes to ask for help, so I often end up spending too much time on a project, doing sloppy work on the project, or not completing the project.
Trying to do everything myself not only robs me, but it also …

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about conducting informational interviews. Today, I noticed that Marci Alboher added a different perspective to the topic by discussing her pet peeves about informational interviews in her New York Times blog.
In her article, Ms. Alboher (she called me Mr. Wilson) specifically mentioned 4 pet peeves:
1. Never overstay your welcome. Whether it’s lingering too long in person or on the phone or engaging in too much follow-up, it’s important to read signals and respond accordingly. I’m currently being stalked — by e-mail, …