“If you want to understand how executives think, you have to understand the money.” That statement from Alan Morley during my master’s program in Technology Management at Columbia University changed the course of my career. I had been a software engineer for almost ten years, regularly getting frustrated with how business decisions were made at…
Month: April 2025
What motivates this person in front of me?
What motivates this person in front of me? Many of us make the mistake of assuming that other people think and feel the way we do about a situation. But different people are motivated by different things, and are looking at different parts of the situation than we are. These differences are an opportunity. When…
Growing your influence skills will help you get the right things done.
Growing your influence skills will help you get the right things done. In my 20s, I was that engineer calling the CEO an idiot at all hands meetings and wondering why my insights weren’t appreciated. I was objectively right in that case (that CEO led the company into bankruptcy in part because he ignored the…
Wise words from Jerry Colonna:
Wise words from Jerry Colonna: “What’s required of leaders now—truly, what’s required of all of us—is to resist the anesthesia of neutrality. To choose empathy over indifference. Voice over avoidance.” Jerry talks often of being complicit. That doesn’t mean you are at fault for something, but that you are an accomplice to it, part of…