This is the personal page for the owner of The Business Realist and the author of Who Moved My Holy Hand Grenade? that contains some blog pieces and the very popular office neologisms. I've also included my resume.
About
Personal brand
I brand myself as the business realist because I work very hard to understand and see the world the way that it is and not the way I expect or want it to be. I find that too many people are steeped in some sort of management methodology making them unable to see the forest for the trees. I consider my strengths to be:
- Mobilizing – An impassioned leader, able to bring out the best in people and leverage their strengths and interests while creating a fun and productive work environment.
- Communicating – An excellent writer and public speaker, a certified Neurolinguistics Programming (NLP) practitioner, and above all, a great listener.
- Gaining trust – A trusted advisor and confidante to all levels of clients and colleagues and a mentor to direct reports.
- Problem-solving – A non-linear thinker with an engineering and systems dynamics background who can deftly find root causes and get results quickly.
- Creativity – Also, a right-brained thinker who uses humor and wit to create compelling communications, such as training, videos, websites, cartoons, and a book, that challenge conventional wisdom.
Please check out my full resume.
The Business Realist
This is my consulting, training, and coaching business. The site is full of what I call "Reality Checks" or doses of wisdom that are often much-needed when initiating and implementing change initiatives. Check out all my tips on how to get results in an easier and more effective fashion.
Who Moved My Holy Hand Grenade
Everything I Needed to Learn in Business, I Learned from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Seriously, who would have thought it? You can learn everything about business from this very silly movie. Remember "Bring out your dead" when John Cleese kills his sick relative so that he can get him on the dead cart? Isn't that a fitting analogy for corporate imperatives to meet the short-term profit objectives often at the sacrifice of long-term growth? Tell me the scene where the villagers determine if the woman is a witch by weighing her with duck does not depict corporate decision-making at its worst. Read more of my warped sense of humor.
Latest Blogs
No Value for the Money
A while ago, I watched Bill Clinton on the Daily Show discuss the current economic meltdown. His insight into this whole mess was that the demand for the mortgage-backed securities was so high that the sellers of these began underwriting more and more risky mortgages in order to fill the demand. Because no one really understood how these worked, and because the risks of these bad mortgages were now borne by many investors instead of just a few, these securities continued to be created and sold to meet the demand. This insight got me thinking about the current state of investing these days, and I’ve concluded that there are no good places to put your money.
First, let’s look at bonds. US Treasuries used to be a good investment, but these days due to our big deficit , bonds no longer have much value. Both the value of bonds themselves is declining due to the amount of government spending and the interest they get is pretty paltry. When I last looked, the interest rate was less than most certificates of deposit. Bonds for municipalities may be returning higher rates, but some of these are considered to be junk due to looming fiscal crises. Who really wants to invest retirement or college savings in junk bonds?
Then there are stocks. Looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, stocks had steady growth in the 80’s and 90’s. If you invested after the .com bubble burst in 2000 or 2001, your money didn’t do much until 2007. Now with the latest crash, stocks are trading at about the same price as 1996. Much of my bonus and options were in Pfizer stock, granted at prices between 32 and 47, which is now trading at 15. I also thought buying Fannie Mae preferred stock was a relatively conservative investment. A friend of mine had her retirement portfolio from Amex in Lehman Brothers stock. Even GE, once the epitome of a ‘solid’ investment is struggling to reward shareholders.
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