Burry Foss Remembers Harvey

I asked one of my Gellman Hayward partners, Burry Foss, how he remembers Harvey Gellman.  He was such a big influence on us all. Burry Foss Remembers  I first met Harvey in the spring of 1965, when he interviewed me for a consulting position in DCF systems while I was comp

CoffeeCAST – #55 – One Version of the Truth and Consulting

Welcome to the 55th CoffeeCAST with Stephen Hayward of Project X Ltd. It is a spring cleanup type of coffeecast where we want to talk about how to create efficiency in capturing unstructured project related information. I have asked Michael Ianni-Palarchio to join me today where we wi

Making Emails More Effective

“I do not read attachments if you do not respect my time by summarizing it in the body.”  See http://www.dilbert.com/2010-04-21/  This was a recent Dilbert cartoon.  I have not gone to that length but the idea made me pause.  Who are the peopl

The Next Hundred Years

What will the next hundred years be like?   George Friedman in “The Next 100 Years” attempts to answer the question. His approach is really about global politics and power.  I found several of his ideas very thought provoking and made me think about things diff

Being Present

Did you know Peter Senge, the proponent of the learning organization, considers presence a very important ingredient for the modern organization?   I was very pleased to see my interest in being present supported by a influential business author.   I have writt

Being a Consultant – Many Roles

Is a consultant the expert, an extra pair of hands, a source of revenue, a source of advice, ……….?  In a consulting course I created often called Consulting 101 I devote a whole section to dealing with this question.   The answer to the question depends o

Update on Motivating People to Enter Golf Scores

Based on a suggestion of Dan Pink, the author of Drive, I used a technique attempted in hotels to get people to reuse towels.   Initially they used a “Protect the Environment” sign to encouraged people to reuse towels.  It was not very effective.  They changed

Things New and Change

When kids are given something new they are all excited and welcome it with pleasure.   When we as adults hear that something is new, we hear change and resist it.    I guess kids must welcome change. Now that is not something I understand but my experience says

Practice Makes Perfect

How do we become accomplished at something?   The book "Outliers" (see http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html ) talks about various examples of circumstances that made people good at something.    I really liked the example of the Beatles.

How Circumstances Change A Person’s Life

I know a fellow whose life was changed by Newfoundland joining Canada in 1949.  George was living with "an aunt" and was in grade 3.  His mother had died and his father worked in the woods.  He decided he did not like school and quit school.  That yea