Today is the 103rd Anniversary of my beautiful mother’s birthday. At her 2004 memorial service, I spoke about 6 of the most important lessons she taught me by the way she lived her 85 years. Recently, I have thought a lot about the Leadership Lessons I learned from her words and actions: Take care of […]
LEADING BY LISTENING – A LESSON FROM COACH K Near the end of Duke’s Sweet 16 victory over Texas Tech, Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski), one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history listened to his players – who asked him to let them change from zone defense to play “man to man.” He agreed […]
5 “NO REGRETS” ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE RIGHT NOW TO HELP UKRAINE Originally Published March 7, 2022 Last Updated March 9, 2022 This is a photo of Yaroslav Mudriy [for critical security concerns, his real name cannot be revealed at this time], with his niece Mariya and sister-in-law Olena taken in the strikingly beautiful 1600+ years old city of Kyiv when I visited […]
Summary: We drove over 3,000 miles last week from Boston to Atlanta, Jonesboro, Ellenwood, McDonough, Riverdale, Montgomery, Griffin, Lagrange, Oxford and Covington, Georgia and back home. We travelled south to work door-to-door canvassing to help the Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win their runoff races to represent Georgia in the US Senate. The bulk […]
Net: CEO’s and other company leaders with a enterprise view of their operations are uniquely positioned to identify and share best practices in all areas. This opportunity can be greatest in organizations that operate in multiple locations with a lot of entrepreneurial flexibility to pilot new ideas, especially in sales and marketing. One way to […]
Net: One of the most important roles of leaders and managers is to “look for people doing things right and tell them.” Like most companies, The Loyalty Group (now the LoyaltyOne division of Alliance Data) had Operating Principles. Ours were: Work together Be at cause Respect & challenge each other Teach & learn Have fun […]
Recently, my dear friend, Year Up colleague and work “therapist” Betsy said “I know a lot about your dad. Tell me about your mom.” My mother Hovah Vonda Hall Underwood left this earth on September 24, 2004. At her memorial service, I spoke about 6 of the most important lessons she taught me and those […]
My brilliant friend Morra Aarons-Mele, creator of the podcast “Hiding in the Bathroom” and author of a book by the same name subtitled “An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You Would Rather Stay Home),” recently posted the poignant question “How do you stop obsessing over a f-up?” on Facebook. I responded to her […]
A few years ago I wrote “A coffee for a coffee, a car for a car, $10 for porn?” an article about several positive experiences with businesses’ quick action to make up for service failures. Recently, I had a similar experience with Gild Hall, my favorite NYC hotel. Located a short walk from Year Up’s […]
Last weekend I rode CHUBike 160 miles in my 3rd Pan Mass Challenge along with 60 of my Year Up TEAM DMITRI! colleagues and thousands of other like-minded cyclists. The PMC is the world’s most successful athletic fund raiser, having raised over $450 million dollars for cancer research. It may also be the best example […]