Motivated Innovation

Earlier this month, I read an article on LinkedIn by Mark Stevens about job interviews . For those of you unfamiliar with Mark, he is an established marketing guru who built his business up in a bootstrap manner. That is remarkable! However, I strongly disagree with his stance in this article. Some say he was "trolling" just to receive online responses. If this is true, he succeeded. Here are 3 lessons I share with readers: 1. Understand the role and power of HR From my career experience, HR has become well-connected with other departments in an organization. HR representatives are included with both strategic planning and tactical daily operations. While some reps do not have personal experience in roles in which they are hiring for, they do have open communication with those in the department and have at least a baseline understanding of their hiring needs. They are not outsiders--they are "in the know" and know both what is going on within the company and...

*formerly posted on "Welcome, International Students!" blog Recently, a memorable key chain broke off from my car keys. It was a key chain that my parents bought for me as a little boy at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. It said "RICH" (which some of my friends, classmates, and relatives have called me over the years). Looking back, what I remember most from that day was a moment with my oldest brother (who has since passed away). I remember getting really hungry, so my brother agreed to take me over to the restaurant area to buy some food. In front of us in line were an older brother and a younger brother. I think they were the same exact ages as my brother and me. They were born in one of the countries in the Middle Eastern/North African area of the world. They were wearing clothing that was traditional from their country, including headdresses of some sort. We talked for a bit with the brothers. It was funny how much we were just like them. I ...

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. This was my second visit to the hall of fame (my first visit was back in 2004). I saw displays from numerous musicians and musical artists. Some of my favorite displays included: Elvis Presley's military uniform One of Michael Jackson's Grammy Awards from the music video/short film "Thriller" Clothing and jewelry from Run-D.M.C. A Pearl Jam Rock n' Jock Softball Uniform Gear from the Beastie Boys' music video "Intergalactic" Each of these items stood out for one reason or another. Each was distinctly recognizable. However, the display that most caught my attention was this quote from Billy Joel: One simple quote. "If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time." So simple yet so thought-provoking. 'Oh, these musicians, they must love life--they get to do what they love to do all th...

Business ethics was a primary emphasis during my business education at Xavier University and Bowling Green State University . Among the sad stories of corruption over the last 20 years was the rise and fall of Enron. A number of officials at Enron managed to establish the energy/utilities company among a multitude of ambitious technology companies during the dot com boom and bust of the late 1990s/early 2000s. While I missed the opportunity to see Sherron Watkins speak at Xavier in 2003 , I did get to learn much more about Enron during MBA 583 class (now called MBA 5830) at BGSU in 2008 . The lessons learned remain with me today as I strive to be an ethical business professional and look to avoid the greed and deception that destroyed Enron. For reference, here is an article I wrote about Enron on Suite101.com . (As a side note, Suite101 has since changed its focus and no longer publishes articles like this.)   

During a church sermon that I had heard late last summer/early last fall, a pastor addressed the issues of fairness and justice. I had originally started typing this blog post in September 2012 but, due to time & energy constraints, I never got past the first line! In terms of employment, organizational development, teamwork, culture, and other areas of practice and thought, I have thought about fairness and justice for a number of years now. From a distance, both values look to be clear and self-explanatory. Yet, when experiencing fairness or unfairness or justice or injustice, the terms are not so clear-cut. I will now focus in more on fairness and justice in the realm of organizational development--more specifically, in regards to leadership and management. On one hand, fairness and justice relate to equal treatment, equal opportunity, shared resources, and so on. On the other hand, fairness and justice relate to providing the best treatment, best opportunities, best resou...

Last week, the healthcare IT blog HIStalk ("HIS" = health information systems, not a blog only for men) commented on a story from The Miami Herald   about missing inventory. Without clicking on these links, one may think that the missing inventory might have only been a few office supplies in a medical records office. On the contrary, the University of Miami experienced $14 million in medicine/drug inventory shrinkage. $14 million!!! Surely, tracking inventory can be very expensive financially and very costly timewise. Whether a system runs on manual data entry (written, typed), UPC barcodes, RFID, GPS, or other methods & technologies, the actions needed to keep an active, accurate count can be difficult and disruptive. Furthermore, both human errors and system errors occur, resulting in discrepancies--miscounts, mispicks, incorrect valuation, etc. Perfection is something to strive for, not something that is--inventory management is no exception. Still, the case of p...

*formerly posted on "Welcome, International Students!" blog Hello everyone! How are you? I opened my Facebook inbox a few minutes ago and saw an article that Souvik had forwarded me from USNews.com. The article, "6 Tips for International Graduate Students Enrolling This Fall" , lists some general tips for helping new international students prepare for graduate school. This article immediately grabbed my attention because I remember Souvik and some of my other international graduate classmates discussing these matters throughout our MBA program--for themselves, for their peers, and for new incoming students. Obviously, moving to another country to attend school is a life-changing experience; the opportunity should not be taken lightly. By going to the campus community earlier, you are able to meet people sooner, learn about important resources and locations sooner, and start developing your daily & weekly routines before classes even begin. My international c...