Be Your Own CEO of the Decade

Steve Jobs was deemed to be the CEO of the Decade by Fortune Magazine. As they put it, he not only revolutionized one industry, but he revolutionized four industries. And he did it when there were already other established leaders in each, unlike his compatriots Josiah Wedgwood (chinamaker), John D. Rockefeller (oil), Andrew Carnegie (steel), Henry Ford (automobiles) and Estée Lauder (make-up).

After reading the 31 page exposé about him, one thought struck me like a wall of bricks crashing down: how do I ensure that I am more than a footnote in history? Will I ever leave a lasting impression on something more than just a gravestone?

The only effect I seem to be

leaving right at this moment is the effect that I'm not as good a planner as I thought I was. I intended on writing about a few things I read in Entrepreneur, but due to the fact that we are moving from Long Island, New York to New Jersey on Wednesday I mistakenly packed the issue in question away and don't remember in which box it went. This is an unfortunately good illustration of something else I read in the same issue of Fortune: "good execution beats a bad idea."

The author, Wilbur Ross (CEO of W.L. Ross & Co.), described his experience buying mediocre performing steel companies and then combining them to form International Steel and the steps he took to turn them around so that the combined strength was greater than the sum of the parts. In effect, the great execution of his acquisition plans more than compensated for the fact that the companies he purchased where not in the best financial health.

The opposite effect can be seen in my predicament for this week. I know I write a blog entry every week; I knew when I read that issue of Entrepreneur that I wanted to use it for this week's entry; yet I not only neglected to leave it on the coffee table, but I also packed it away in a box that is in a community of 7 stacks of boxes (piled 5 high) making it virtually impossible to find.

Translating this to the original question ("how do I leave a mark on the world [of business]?"), one should realize that any idea is better than no idea. After all, the quality of the idea will not amount to a hill of beans in the long run. Instead, it is the forethought that you put into the execution plan and its eventual execution that will really separate you from the rest of the pack.

Finding Clarity in the Chaos of a Job Search

Job searches are humbling. They test your confidence, your patience, and your ability to stay motivated when things don’t move as quickly as you’d like. But they also teach you things about yourself that you might not have learned any other way. For me, the past few months have been a crash course in rediscovering what really matters: not just in a résumé, but in relationships, self-perception, and how we use technology to help tell our stories. Here are three lessons that stood out. Reach Out to Your Network (Long Before You Need It) Your network is a living thing. It requires upkeep, time, and attention, just like a flower garden. You can’t ignore it for years and expect it to bloom the moment you need it. Start planting early. Stay in touch with people whose paths you’ve crossed - colleagues, mentors, partners, even those you only worked with briefly. Drop a note once in a while. Comment on their posts. Share something that made you think of them. These small gestures are the sunl...

Time to Level Up!

With the recent news out of Salesforce and Oracle, it’s easy to understand why folks affected by layoffs might feel discouraged. Not only are they leaving companies they may have called home for years, but they’re also facing the daunting prospect of job hunting while headlines scream about “AI taking over human jobs.” Not long ago, another company I follow - let’s call it Acme - went through a similar round of layoffs. Two employees in particular (we’ll call them Jim and John) showed how mindset can make all the difference. Jim had been at Acme for over 20 years. He was reliable, steady, and well-liked, but not exactly the standout type. When he was laid off, he decided to take some time off before even thinking about his next move. After all, he had a severance package. Didn’t he deserve a break after two decades of hard work? John’s story was different. Though he hadn’t been at Acme as long, he’d built a strong reputation and had both technical and leadership skills. Instead of...

COSMIC Insights

Consider the following scenario: you're a mid-level manager and find out that a layoff is coming. You're about too lose one of your best direct reports, but you have no ability to influence the decision to lay them off. Oy! My head hurts! What do you do? Oftentimes, I find that people - when presented with situations where they feel compelled to act but have no ability to change the outcome - enter a state of mental lethargy. They don't know exactly what it is they should do but, "gosh darnit!", something has to be done. When they realize how helpless they actually are, they start lamenting about the situation, how they are backed into a corner, etc. In a very real sense, they go through the five stages of grief . I'd like to offer the following alternative way of approaching these and other situations: I call it the COSMIC method, not only because it sounds cool but also because I like science fiction (" Lisan al Gaib! "). COSMIC is an acronym...

A Businessman's View

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