A Businessman's View

"Not intended for use as a life saving device" was what the packaging for my infant's outdoor, blow-up pool read. "What?" was my response. After all, who in the world would mistake a blow up pool for a life saving device? The problem above is not uncommon in the world of business either. One of the best public presenters that I've ever seen, David Barnes , did not earn that accolade because of his enthusiasm. (And he is a very enthusiastic public speaker.) Instead, in spite of the energy level that he had that could power Manhattan for a week, his message was clear as a newly produced pane of glass. Does this come naturally? There is a common expression that says (paraphrased): "amateurs practice until they get it right, while professionals practice until they cannot get it wrong." While this adage is probably more applicable to situations where you are being questioned (e.g. product demonstrations, job interviews, etc.) the sentiment that...

In early June, I had lunch with the CFO and COO of a mid-sized company that has been experiencing 20% Y/Y top-line revenue growth for the past few years. While waiting for our lunch to arrive, I commented that they must be quite happy with the growth they've experienced in these "tough economic times." (They can't be too tough if companies are still able to experience growth rates like this, eh?) The COO replied that he was quite happy but that the growth had come at a cost: he is too busy dealing with the current business that they have. As a result, so he is unable to get some longer-term goals accomplished. One of these goals is to write a Standard Operating Procedure manual that would explicitly state the means by which the business operates; the manner by which sales translates into dollars; the method by which paper travels from start to finish. "You mean you don't have your processes documented currently?" I asked. "No," he replied....

When Oracle announced in late April that it would buy Sun Microsystems it shocked more than a few people. Tom In , Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Alkeon Capital Management , obviously had his own thoughts on the matter. Paraphrased, he recalled to me over lunch the other notable acquisitions that Oracle had made: Primavera, PeopleSoft, and BEA to name a few. During our discussion, we noted several possible combinations of acquired assets that could be used depending on what their corporate strategy is. Oracle is hardly the first company to take this approach either. BMC, HP, CA, Microsoft and several others have been known to base their growth on the purchasing of other companies rather than grow organically. Why do this? Generally, their mindset in situations like this is that it's quicker to buy than build; if you purchase companies that are best in their respective fields you can fill holes in your corporate strategy much more quickly. On a personal level, we a...

I once posed the following question on a LinkedIn discussion group: "what is the point of having a network of 1,000 people or so?" What ensued was a segregation of people into two groups of people that strongly believed in their answer. On one side were the people that felt casting the widest net was the best option. Not only that, but one can always help others in need since you will undoubtedly have someone in your network that is able to assist. On the other side were the people that felt having members of their network that knew them personally ensured that the network had value in its own right since your endorsement carried more weight. After all, they reasoned, everyone in the network has (theoretically) seen first hand what you can do so there is value in your word as a professional. Regardless of your opinion one thing is true: staying on the radar of everyone in your network is crucial for continued success and career movement. This isn't fashion where ...