“Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.”

Indra Nooyi
Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo

 ————

 “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Robert J. Hanlon

Who Needs to Be Fired Today?

“It is not unusual for an organization to be fuzzy about hiring and firing practices. Upper management does not trust lower management to make sound decisions, and this lack of clarity creates a malaise of inaction that is allows underperformance to continue, simultaneously debilitating the morale of the rest of the team,” writes Vistage Speaker Tom Foster in a recent blog posting.

How to address this vicious cycle? Foster suggests the concept of the “Manager Once Removed” in a recent blog posting “Who Needs to be Fired Today”. A good read before you next hire or “release someone to industry.”

The Origins of Original Thinking

We all want original thinkers in our companies (to say nothing of being better at it ourselves). But how do original thinkers get that way? Adam Grant, a professor at Wharton took a hard but humorous look at this question and found three habits of original thinkers. Maybe you and your team could acquire these habits too?

Memo to IT: Best of Five

Executives complain about hackers getting access to their systems but as often as not, the hackers were all but invited in. Case in point: Logon Lockouts. Vistage Speaker and ‘Certified Ethical’ Hacker Mike Foster offers a one page article on his website regarding a simple tool that most companies already own (and takes only a few minutes to use) that can discourage hackers from accessing your system by repeatedly trying different passwords. Are you already under attack and don’t know it? Is your IT department using this simple tool?

Forward this link to your IT guru so there’s one more lock on the door when the attackers come knocking.

The Psychopath Next Door

The problem with psychopaths is that on the outside they look like everyone else. Consequently, they are as likely to end up as your co-worker as anyone else. But as Vistage Speaker Gustavo Grodnitzky notes, “You have to be a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist to diagnose a psychological condition; you don’t have to have a license to notice one.” They may not be a physical threat, but they might wreak havoc on your career. This short article from Business Insider provides nine clues that will help you decide if the person in the next cubicle is a colleague or a threat.