Posts By Jack Gates

The Whine Connoisseur

You know them – always the glass half empty outlook…complaining about the brightness when the sun breaks through the dismal gray February days. They derail conversations and meetings. When making a contribution, it comes with negative overtones and is diluted by the complaint of the day. They are disruptive to creative sessions and are toxicRead… Read more »

Google Plus for Business – Why Be An Early Adopter?

In November Google released Plus Pages for Business – it is similar to your personal Google Plus Page, but with features to create your electronic business personality. Whoa! – you say you work for a large organization or an agency and can’t put up a page for your day job…the Plus Business Pages works wellRead… Read more »

And The Winner Is…You!

We participated this week with seven other entrepreneurs in the 2011 Capital Management Technology Hub and George Mason’s School of Management Technology Startup Challenge to introduce our cloud-based community and supporting tools: MyLeadershipPractice. What a top notch event and great learning experience! Plenty of innovative solutions to specific needs were presented. The competition was anRead… Read more »

Project Management by Henry Ford

Imagine the situation as Henry Ford was planning production of the Model T : over 5,000 parts; multiple manufacturing vendors; skilled to semi-skilled production processes; and growing demand. He addressed part of the production process by determining an optimal assembly sequence and moving the vehicle along to workstations which have the required parts, tools, andRead… Read more »

There’s Talk, and There’s Communication

Peter Drucker said ‘60% of all management problems are the result of poor communication.’ Why is this true? Communications break down when losing focus on three areas: clarity of what’s expected accuracy of what’s completed, and timeliness of what’s needed. Clarity of What’s Expected – Projects which do not have clear goals, vision, and missionRead… Read more »

Learn By Doing

When talking about leadership, Dick Davies said “leadership can not be taught – it can only be learned.” It caught me by surprise at the time, but has stayed with me as a fundamental in developing leaders. Learn by doing. In my youth, I wanted to learn to play tennis and read several books aboutRead… Read more »