Requisite Reading

What Is Real Executive Work? (That Executives Aren’t Doing)

Forrest Christian — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:53:41 +0000

Japanese workers call their executives “tea drinkers” I got some strong comments regarding my post that executives are boobs. I probably should have said “worthless drags on shareholder value who ought to be golden parachuted into a live volcano that resembles the eternal hell they deserve for being lazy good-for-nothings.” But let’s not quibble. Let’s [...]

Most Executives Are Complete Boobs (or “Why the Recovery Won’t Happen”)

Forrest Christian — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:35:16 +0000

If you are banking on corporate executives to make the high-level market decisions that will pull the world out of this spiraling recession, you’re betting on a nag. Most executives not only don’t know how to do executive-level work, they couldn’t do it if they did. Executive work is not line work, nor is it [...]

Why Being Really High Potential Is Bad For Your Life

Forrest Christian — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:33:34 +0000

Back in 2008, I wrote an “anonymized” story about meeting up with a very high potential and our conversation. Although I wrote it a long time ago, it recently had two interesting comments from Alex and Ken Shepard. Alex I don’t know but Ken is the leader of the GO Society and has been a [...]

Make Money with Executives by Preying on Ideologies, Not Profit Motive

Forrest Christian — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:43:06 +0000

downsizing

Commenter Michael Bates Singled Out By Washington Post as “Best”

Forrest Christian — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:20:05 +0000

Michael Bates, who has been a frequent commenter on this blog, was recently given the nod by the Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza as one of the best State bloggers. Michael’s blog, Batesline, covers the goings on in Tulsa and the greater state of Oklahoma. I met up with him when I was down in Tulsa [...]

You Change Your Mind – And That’s Not Normal

Forrest Christian — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:30:46 +0000

If you’re old enough to bother reading this, you likely can look over your life and see the points at which you have changed your mind. Or finessed one of your pet theories of life. To you this seems like a normal process, one that comes with aging and growing. It’s not. You’re weird. And [...]

Summer Reading List

Forrest Christian — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:23:52 +0000

Like everyone else, I do a good deal of summer reading on the way to here or there. Or simply waiting for my baby to stop screaming. (Poor GERDy kid!) In addition to the mindless Kindle reading, which I’ll have to list elsewhere simply because I have no idea how to pull off my list [...]

GenX Future, According to Rod Serling

Forrest Christian — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:01:00 +0000

Back in season one of his show, The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling penned a prophecy of GenX’s end. By taking a look at it, you GenXers can see what lies in store for you at the end of your life. The episode is “One For the Angels” starring the incomparable Ed Wynn as Lew Bookman, [...]

How Simply Being Bigger Gets You Arrested

Forrest Christian — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:05:09 +0000

Hulk misunderstood. Puny humans always trying to kill Hulk. Hulk smash puny humans! When you are bigger than everyone else, you are much more likely to get hammered for irritating people. It doesn’t matter if that’s physical size or “work” size, where you have the capability to do a larger job than the people around [...]

Forget and Forgive. Not the Other Way Around.

Forrest Christian — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:34:37 +0000

In my lessons on the Tao of Joe: Redeeming Our Stories, I’ve pointed out that the patriarch’s model was to forget well before he ever forgave. Forgetting not only the wrongs, he forgot those who had wronged him (in his case, his brothers). Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh (Forget), saying, “God made me forget all [...]