Time management

In the frantic buzz of most managerial lives, I see people running from meeting to meeting, consulting their BlackBerrys as though in prayer, desperately working into the night to cope with a deluge of emails and otherwise being busy, busy, busy. The dilemma of all this activity, however, is that it is for the most […]

Jim Collins is all about discipline. The man who described Level 5 Leadership not only understands the inner fortitude of the best-performing companies and leaders; he’s famously disciplined and enormously productive, as you can tell from his website (jimcollins.com). A runner and mountain-climber, he is the picture of fitness. How does he manage his time? […]

Six strategies.

The burdens of subordinates always seem to end up on the manager’s back. Here’s how to get rid of them.

Research shows how to make messaging more efficient.

If the CEO sits in the hot seat, the CFO’s chair is positively smoking. According to analysis conducted by the CFO Executive Board, annual CFO turnover at the largest 162 global companies between 1995 and 2003 was 17%—even higher than for CEOs—and three out of four current Fortune 500 finance officers have been in their […]

And don't feel guilty about it.

I have a colleague in publishing who works many miles from me and has a different but overlapping area of editorial expertise. Recently, instead of doing a bit of freelance work for her independently and having her interpret it later, I suggested that, as an experiment, I do it live with her on the phone […]

Time is money, but few organizations treat it that way.

Today’s technologies call for different skills.

“If you’re unhappy at work, you’re probably unhappy in life.”

The key to productivity isn't starting strong - it's staying strong.

Use empirical evidence to make your case.

Ways to stay helpful while avoiding overload

How to approach your responsibilities—and your career—in an understaffed unit by Paul Michelman

Four steps you can take to protect your free time.

Make sure they know it's okay.

If something is really important, block out a whole day.

What do we lose when we track, monitor, and assess our leisure?

Like zillions (or at least tens and tens of thousands) of other non-surgeons, I’ve been reading Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. It’s a wonderfully entertaining and thought-provoking book. (If you want the short version, you can listen to HBR’s Katherine Bell interviewing Gawande here.) Gawande convincingly makes the case that medicine — in particular surgery […]