Recently, I spent three days serving as a juror on a personal injury case. There were many lessons learned that I would like to share. One lesson I learned is that justice doesn’t always prevail in the courtroom. My naïve belief going into jury deliberations was that twelve reasonable people would come out with a fair and impartial verdict. That ...
Recently, I learned several lessons as I spent three days as a juror. The first lesson is how differently people can view the same set of facts. The defendant had run a red light, then crashed into the plaintiff’s car. The plaintiff’s car was “totaled,” and, she racked up $107,000 in emergency room and subsequent medical bills. Her request for ...
Recently, I was providing counsel to a company who had a bonus plan that wasn’t producing desired results. Over time, as the business “flat-lined” in sales, the management continued earning healthy bonuses for just maintaining the status quo. The company bonus plan had become an entitlement for these leaders, but provided little value for the company. The challenge becomes how ...
According to the Readers Digest, one of the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad movement, was Levi Coffin. Levi was a Quaker who housed as many as 17 slaves at a time. These slaves were escaping the South and headed for Canada. At great risk to himself, Levi suffered through persecution and death threats to help solve one of the ...
A handyman called me for some business counsel. He had one full-time employee making $30,000 a year, while he personally paid himself $9,000. He had strong demand for his services, but couldn’t understand how to make the business financially solvent. His billing rate was significantly below industry norms, because he feared upsetting his customers with increased prices. Many small business ...
At a “Faith at Work Summit” in September, I had the joy of watching 86-year-old John Perkins speak with such passion that it inspired the room to the point of a standing ovation. John is an amazing leader who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and experienced the brutality of the 1960s personally. After helping develop multiple businesses, healthy urban ...
One of my daughters recently experienced car trouble and was needing to take her car to a repair shop. Before she left, she said to me, “I’m really nervous about going to these kind of places, because I don’t know much about cars, and I’m afraid they’ll take advantage of me.” When we’re forced to buy services that we don’t ...
Prior to Philadelphia’s famous Wanamaker’s department store, prices were usually established by haggling with the shopkeeper. John Wanamaker, a department store legend in the early 1900s, had a philosophical problem with haggling so he invented a fixed price amount for price tags and the money-back guarantee. His problem with the practice of haggling flowed out of his spiritual roots. He ...
During 1894, to enhance profits the Pullman Palace Car Company slashed the wages of its employees while requiring them to work 16 hour days. Pullman also controlled housing and necessities through their ownership of the local town. When George Pullman refused to listen to his employees concerns, the situation escalated into a national shutdown of the railroad system. Federal troops ...
There are leaders who heavily lean towards thinking everything is either right or wrong. They follow the rules closely and struggle when someone breaks the rules. Other leaders, however, seem to believe that rules and laws are simply suggestions. They’re more inclined to think about the spirit of the law, but often overlook the importance of the laws. Both approaches ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
