Leadership
“You will always be looking over your shoulder waiting for somebody to call you out and say, ‘You’re a fraud, you’re an idiot.’ … I still start things and basically […]
What do companies like Hilton, Salesforce, and Wegman’s Food Markets have in common? First, they all have some of the happiest employees in their industries. These three companies made the […]
When we look at some of the companies with notoriously bad customer service, like Comcast, Bank of America, or United Airlines, it could be tempting to say that good customer […]
It doesn’t hurt to be quick, responsive, friendly, efficient, or reliable. But for A. G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, the most important ingredient to making your customers […]
Any business owner wants to make sure they’re giving their customers an ideal experience. Not only are happy customers more likely to be repeat customers, but they can serve as […]
Why should customers buy from you instead of your competitors? That’s the question at the heart of making a sale in a competitive market, says Matt Dixon, Global Head of […]
When it comes to hiring great salespeople, the statistics do not paint a pretty picture. In the U.S., roughly a third of all salespeople leave or are fired from their […]
Every day, humanity generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. Every minute, users are sharing nearly 500,000 tweets, watching more than 4 million YouTube videos, and conducting more than 3.6 million […]
By the time John Paul DeJoria founded John Paul Mitchell Systems, he’d already sold encyclopedias on commission door-to-door, and he understood the importance of persistence in the face of rejection. […]
Culture of a company is like the character of an individual,” says Simon Sinek in his Big Think+ video, “Starting with Why: Build a Culture by Design.” We know that […]
While fewer companies these days rely solely on interviews in deciding who to hire, interviews still have value in that they can reveal the difference between a candidate as a […]
If a new hire is expected to put in 40 hours, 50 hours, or even more at their job, their new position will be their life for as long as […]
Connecting with an audience, as any comic knows, means reading that audience. It’s energetic improv in real time—you need to notice who’s engaged, what’s engaging them, and build on that. […]
“Trust is so important to how we scale an idea. Without that trust, we don’t take risks. And without risk we don’t build that next big thing,” says Nilofer Merchant, […]
You know it. Your employees know it. They’re likely to stay with your company only for just a short while. Two years, four years, seven years max. Yet you both […]
Chairman of JetBlue Joel Peterson considers trust, “smart” trust, a key element in a successful organization. Where there’s trust, a company is free to become a whole greater than the […]
Stanley Tucci has played a lot of different roles on movie sets, both in front of and behind the camera. As a director, though, Tucci stands in the center of […]
It’s probably always been the case that each generation’s creations and preoccupations shape the next generation in unexpected ways, producing young adults who seem nearly incomprehensible to their elders, especially […]
“Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” In her Big Think+ video, “Empower Your People — Conversational Moves for Engaging Your Team in Creative […]
Should you find yourself speaking to a group of people and not connecting, you’re stuck in a situation that seemingly benefits no one. For some people it seems to come […]
You can practically see them slipping away. Yes, they’re still in the conversation with you, at least physically, but you know: The other person has disengaged. Who knows where their […]
Angie McArthur, CEO of Professional Thinking Partners and the co-author of Collaborative Intelligence, talks about keeping a relationship “clean.” She’s talking about dealing with misunderstandings before they have a chance […]
Negotiating is often a white-knuckle affair, but the stakes are rarely higher than when the FBI is trying to come to terms with a kidnapper. Chris Voss, now CEO of […]
For a startup, growth is a straightforward matter of scaling up: adding employees, setting up distribution channels, and so on. But, says David Butler in his Big Think+ video “Design […]
As the world seems to spin ever faster, “agility” has become more than something to which a business might aspire — it’s become an absolute necessity for any company looking […]
Disagreements are inevitable — we all have different experiences that lead us to be who we are and to what we believe. Almost as inevitable are distrust, suspicion, and even […]
Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, is a programmer. When he got the idea to begin posting free online classes, he was able to get the basic infrastructure in place […]
The Taoist idea of wu wei is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. Often translated as “non-doing” or “non-action,” it’s an effortless state in which you’re not explicitly aware of yourself […]
Journalist Ronan Farrow says he’s not a great negotiator, but he’s certainly had a unique opportunity to see how one works. Just out of law school, he was recruited by […]
Weijian Shan, chairman of the PAG group, sees a bright future for investors in China, as long as they understand the evolving nature of the country’s economic growth. Though China’s […]