I like Tyler Cowen’s thought on time management from his blog. I resonate with #2, and I think I may adopt #3. Here are my suggestions:1. There is always time to do more, most people, even the productive, have a day that is at least forty percent slack.2. Do the most important things first in the day and don’t let anybody stop you.  Estimate “most important” using a zero discount rate.  Don’t make exceptions.  The hours from 7 to 12 are your time to build for the future before the world descends on you.3. Some tasks (drawing up outlines?) expand or contract to fill the time you give them.  Shove all these into times when you are pressed to do something else very soon.4. Each day stop writing just a bit before you have said everything you want to.  Better to approach your next writing day “hungry” than to feel “written out.”  Your biggest enemy is a day spent not writing, not a day spent writing too little.5. Blogging builds up good work habits; the deadline is always “now.”Rahul R. asks me if I would like to revise the list.  I’ll add these:6. Don’t drink alcohol.  Don’t take drugs.7. At any point in your life, do not be watching more than one television show on a regular basis.8. Don’t feel you have to finish a book or movie if you don’t want to.  I cover that point at length in my book Discover Your Inner Economist.I think I would take back my old #5, since I observe some bloggers who have gone years, ten years in fact, without being so productive.

I swore to myself years ago that if ever I stopped being something when I fired someone I would quit my job and change careers.The experience still hurts. I still feel a deep sense of pain for the person I must let go, and I feel a sense of failure in myself. Almost simultaneously, I feel a sense of love and goodness. There’s a part of me that believes that the right thing to do is to let someone know that you’re not for them. I can’t allow my pain to interfere with the very human job of transitioning someone to their next best step. Leaders can never forget that honesty and frankness is a strong currency of which there is scarce supply and great demand.

When people say “please note” or “noted” I always wonder… where do they note it?  what do they want me to note and where do they think I should note it?  Also… how come someone thinks that what they say is deserving of a note should I have a note to note upon?

In Lewis Carroll’s book, “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”, The Red Queen famously tells Alice, while running…Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.Business people love this quote. It implies that in order to maintain a competitive advantage, you must continuously adapt, move, pivot, and sprint. Evolution.On the other side of the coin, this concept is also known as a “Rat Race” or a “Hamster Wheel.” I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.Hopefully your life is evolving and you’re getting better at being you every day.

A friend asked me if I think life is unfair. I answered “no.” Fairness is subjective. How does one’s concept of fairness get shaped? At the time our cells combined? How we grew up? How life shaped us? All of it? None of it? Because fairness is unique to the person, life can’t be unfair or fair broadly — it must be whatever it is to that person. I choose to see life as fair. I believe things balance out in the aggregate. Eventually, the randomness and chaos of life, comes to absolute zero and total order.… at least that’s my thought for now.

Perhaps the leader’s output is a function of the number and quality of decisions they make in a day.If that’s the case, the quality of a leader’s decision may be a function of:Awareness and perception — information and intelligence.Time and Space to think.Tools for collaborating, designing, building, and showing work.Courage to take risks.The x-factor is the leader’s ability to influence and execute.

What signals a good manager? When you look for a good car mechanic, you might look at reviews on Google, or other social media. You might weight the number of reviews, and how real the reviews look. Based on what you read, you then decide to try out the mechanic or not.When job seekers look for potential companies, they consider Glassdoor reviews. Does the company look good or not? But when candidates think of their next boss, what review sites exist? Radical ideas: What if managers showed up to interviews with a list of references of previous direct reports candidates could call for a reference? What if LinkedIn had a way to have people managers rated? Would-be employees could see star ratings and reviews of people managers to determine who they want to work for. What if previous employee engagement surveys are shared with potential hires? Managers would be responsible for sharing their thoughts on areas for improvement and what employees could expect.Employees like to ask about culture, and managers usually have nice canned responses. “We’re inclusive, we celebrate this and that, we’re getting shit done, blah blah blah…” but how many open the books and say, “this is who people say we are, and here are some of our scars, and here’s what we’re proud about.”I realize I am ruffling the feathers of conventional wisdom. I’m quite okay with that.

When people say they want to leave a job, they invariably tell me it’s because of the boss. My question: why don’t candidates ask to interview their would-be bosses?If candidates are always putting their “best foot” out there, how can we be so sure that would-be bosses do the same? And,If the boss-employee relationship is close, then wouldn’t the presence of good chemistry between the boss and candidate be essential? Take the traditional job interview:Candidate joins the Zoom.Interviewer says “hi” says “this is just going to be a conversation” and then goes into standard interview questions.Candidate presents prepared answers to these standard questions. They often preface their answer with, “oh, good question.”Interviewer says, “it looks like we have a few minutes, is there anything you want to ask me?”This asymmetric exchange may result in a lousy deal for the candidate. I imagine a symmetrical job interview:Every joins the Zoom.Interviewer: we’re going to start out with questions you want to ask, but also, I want you to know that you’ll have time with my team later on to ask them, directly, about working with me and what it’s like working here. They’ll give you honest reviews. Simply ask. Interviewer and Interviewee dig into the type of problem solving they might work through in the job — both getting a glimpse of how the other thinks and works. Interviewer wraps up: thanks! Is this the type of working relationship you want to opt-in for? Interviewer shares their feedback. When our world and work are becoming automated and tech-driven, we must become that much more human.

I notice that when people get confused about a decision or a situation, they say “I don’t know.”I ask, “what don’t you know about?” “I don’t know, nothing seems clear.”“What are the options immediately in front of you?”I then take two options and put them on a table. Option 1 goes to column 1, option 2 goes to column 2. I ask, “what are the benefits of each option?” I write the benefits in the second row under each option. I then make two rows below benefits. The first row is “Opportunity Cost” and the last row is “Benefits Lost.” I then ask the person to pick an option. The “Opportunity Cost” of the option they pick is always the next best alternative, and the “Benefits Lost” is always the benefits of the next best alternative. People tell me that the table creates decision-making clarity for them.

There may be a limit on authenticity. My friends would argue that I’m not aware of one. I believe I have a limit. There always seem to be a push from the HR and employee-engagement communities for more authenticity in the work place. Do we really want that? We all play a role in life — like characters in a show or musicians in a band. Our productivity in our various roles is a function of many things: environment, capacity, skill, desire, genes, etc. My output as a musician is not a function of my output as a friend. I argue to abandon the idea of authenticity and opt for considered or effectiveness. Instead of asking “are you able to be your authentic self” I might ask, “are you able to produce work that you’re proud of; are you able use all of your skills, knowledge and capacity to do it; and do you believe you’re effective?”Perhaps I’m asking a lot — as my friend Darryl says, “you’re known to ruffle feathers.”