Mike Tobias

I'm just a short way into Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt's excellent book, Simple Rules, and came across a passage that struck me as interesting given the breathless hype we're hearing around Big Data these days.

"Why can simpler models outperform...

Originally posted July 31, 2015

Isn't work great? Where past performance can make you more of a d-bag?

If you have worked with anyone that has reached a certain age and level of success, you'll instantly connect with the title. It can be an exercise in...

The number of books, papers, websites, videos and the like, that profess “if you do this, you will be a top performing enterprise,” are laughable. Every self-anointed guru has their sure-fire way to “perform like Apple” or alternately “perform like...

The potential exists for technology, both at home and work, to positively impact our lives. I don't think the net effect of technology is presently positive. Social applications prey on negative and addictive aspects of our personalities and create new...

If you're a follower of innovative leadership or management practices, you'll no doubt have seen some of the breathless statements about Zappos' planned (or impending) move to Holacracy. What's a Holacracy? I won't spend your precious time recounting...

Meta-cognition. Thinking about thinking. In today's harried, data-soaked world, we rarely get time to think about how we think. The holidays are a good time for that.

If we don’t notice what we don’t notice, we’re much more likely to fall prey to poor...

I believe the quote by Churchill goes something like, "success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Some people can't do that.  Turns out it's a mindset thing.

Carol S. Dweck, the Stanford psychologist, researcher and...

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it was a nail.” Abraham Maslow.

The tools you use everyday at work have an influence on how you see things and how you approach problems. Craftsmen are very...

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), more commonly known as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), is a neurological condition that has a genetic component and can be aggravated by environmental and physical factors. The negative characteristics...

We define employee engagement (a term that is widely used and misused) as an employees’ willingness and ability to contribute to company success. And the current level of employee engagement isn’t good.

An excerpt from Gary Hamel’s blog at the Wall...