Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

I post this every year on or near Father's Day because the business and life lessons my father taught me stay with me forever. What he taught me has served me well--even lessons I learned when I didn't at the time necessarily realize I was learning from him. So, I thank my dad for teaching me the following business and life lessons : Listen - Growing up, I thought my Dad was perhaps shy or quiet. Really, he was just a great listener. I believe that's what made him so wise. He would listen to anyone. Young or old. New acquaintance or friend. Provide - My Dad provided for me. Music lessons. Vacations. Summer camp. Boy Scouts.  He gave. He put others' needs first. Today, I find in volunteering likely the same satisfaction he felt when he provided for his family. Educate - My Dad's passion was education. He loved to learn. He loved even more to teach. He lived to help other people learn. In the workplace, providing learning opportunities is one of the most powerful ...

For the past 15 years, I have relied on Debbie Laskey's Blog for expert leadership guidance and always interesting insights into marketing best practices and recaps of marketing trends.   Fortunately, through the years, Debbie has also shared her expertise through a variety of postings on my blog and I'm honored again today to feature Debbie via the following Q&A's:   Question: What inspired you to become so passionate about marketing?   DEBBIE LASKEY : When I started graduate school, I thought I would travel the typical MBA journey by studying finance, management, and organizational behavior. However, from the first moment in my first marketing course, I found my calling.  My assignment was to choose a product or service in order to write a classic 30-page marketing plan. I considered a famous retailer (Nordstrom) and the city of San Francisco, but I wanted to make substantive recommendations upon the completion of the project, so I chose EuroDisney, beca...

What I like most about Miguel Leal ’s memoir, aside from its overall compelling and inspiring information, are the business and life lessons he shares.  Those lessons are found throughout his recently released memoir, The House That Cheese Built . The book is a quintessential American dream story from a Mexican entrepreneur who shares the tale of building a multi-million-dollar business from scratch, complete with both success and failure, and always a vision of hope.  Leal came to the U.S. penniless as a teenager, speaking almost no English; he literally slept in the boiler room of a Wisconsin cheese factory for months before he was caught. Through hard work, grit, and ingenuity Leal would go on to launch his own business. He is widely credited with introducing Mexican cheeses to the U.S. market and grew his company to a multimillion-dollar success story that defined an industry. Yet, like many successful entrepreneurs, Leal’s great successes were matched by a variety of ...

  No One Succeeds Alone is the inspiring story of Compass Founder & CEO Robert Reffkin , whose mother, mentors, and search for belonging taught him valuable lessons that anyone with a dream can put into action today to improve their own quality of life.   Each chapter in the book shares a part of Reffkin’s life story and eight practical lessons , such as:   Love your customers more than your ideas. Find someone to give you the critical feedback others won’t. Collaborate without ego. If you help people, they will want to help you.   Prior to becoming CEO of Compass, a real estate company and technology platform, Reffkin completed a B.A. and M.B.A. from Columbia University and worked at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and as a White House Fellow.   He has also run 50 marathons in 50 states to raise $1 million dollars for charities — including for America Needs You, the non-profit he founded to serve young people living below the poverty line who are th...