How do middle class people of the developed world keep the edge, work ethic, and values their immigrant ancestors had? How do we develop mental toughness?
Tag: Communication
Demma’s 4 P’s: The fundamentals of management
Those fundamental principles that lead to sound business management: Demma’s 4 P’s. A meaningful framework for doing the job of management effectively.
Get to Know Me, From My Company’s Portal Blog
This month my company featured me on our portal in a blog-style interview. I thought I’d share since I haven’t posted much about work lately. Here you go: Get to Know John Demma We all share common goals, […]
Gut Check – Getting Back Up
This barber, he had to be seventy, was telling me once while trimming me up how he just had a whole bunch of cancer surgically removed about a week earlier. Tough old dog, I thought. “I can’t […]
Management Skills: Create Symbiosis
That’s a picture of a cute little clownfish, we’ll call him Remo, swimming among sea anemone. Most fish would not be feeling too good right now, because those cool looking tentacles of the anemone are […]
We All Know About the Same: Nothing
I’m a fraud and so are you. We run around pretending we know a thing or two about a thing or two. And we’re surround by all of these experts on subjects from economics to […]
Strategy: Cortez the Killer
In 1519 Hernán Cortés the Conquistador led a flotilla of 11 ships to the eastern shores of Mexico against the direct orders of his superiors. You see, power and hubris had driven Cortés mad, and […]
Real World, Fake World: How to be a successful manager, leader, and person
As I detailed in this kind of weird article, the work world is not the real world. Work is a made up place, work hierarchies are made up things, and there’s really no such thing […]
Management Skills: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick
I swore I wasn’t going to be one of those parents who would toss empty threats at their kids to try to coerce them into good behavior. You know the old, “If you don’t stop […]
Management Skills: Be Nice
When I was a boy a family friend told me, “You get more flies with honey, kid.” I used to hear that saying a lot as a boy because my resting facial expression has always […]
Management Skills: There’s No Such Thing As ‘Manager’
Manager is a just a made up word. Supposedly a manager is a person who controls a portion of a business, but you and I know this is silly, and not a real thing. Any […]
Born Lucky: Playing Warren Buffett’s Ovarian Lottery
Warren Buffett says he was born lucky. Being born in America, in the 1930s, without having to overcome barriers of race or gender, combined with the power of compound interest, allowed Buffett to amass one […]
Management Skills: Praise and Positive Feedback
The other day I read this Wall Street Journal article called “Smarter Ways to Discipline Children.” The article advocates the parent management strategy outlined by Dr. Alan E. Kazdin in his famous book The Kazdin […]
Career Survivalism: A guide to surviving an economic apocalypse
None of the unemployed people I have met over the past few years expected to be unemployed. They didn’t think their company would ever go out of business or their boss would actually fire them […]
Having Kids Won’t Kill Your Career, But Seeking Work/Life Balance Might
Kids are generally thought of as little career killers for their parents. I can understand why. Kids take up a lot of a parent’s time with their need for attention and supervision, and time is […]