Last spring I got an interesting question: Completely random, but regarding the blog: have you considered tying it into Mad Men in some way? Given the popularity of the show, you could review parts of certain episodes by looking at the management style of Sterling Cooper. Things are a bit different these days, of course…just […]

Are leaders born, or are they made? The Designing Leaders crew had this discussion last month over dinner, and we have been thinking about it a lot since then. It’s an old question that we have all asked ourselves before, and plenty of people have offered up an answer, but nothing that seems to really […]

Aboard a recent Singapore Airlines flight, the Designing Leaders crew was thrilled to see that our favorite business thinker, Daniel Pink, now has a TV show. “Crowd Control,” a documentary series on the National Geographic Channel, had a few episodes on the SQ inflight entertainment system, and it’s classic Pink. In the series he looks […]

Outsourcing to free agents is common for a lot of firms, whether it’s hiring temps in retail, freelancers for your design firm, or Uber drivers. Many knowledge-based companies have incorporated crowdsourcing as a means of generating and testing new ideas. Companies that can effectively collaborate outside their firm gain a huge advantage: they increase the […]

As you consider promoting employees, forget the question “what have you done for me lately?” and instead ask “what will you do for me in the future?” If you avoid thinking of promotions as rewards, and instead think of them as ways to get your most talented employees into positions where they can do more, […]