Management

  • Rusty Golden Handcuffs

    No Comments

    The history of American slavery notes that some slaves reluctantly accepted their shackles, knowing that their harsh life at...

    Read more
    0

  • Your Problem Employee is The Dysfunctional-Functional Employee

    No Comments

    One of the biggest mistakes that I made while running my company Micrel for 37 years was to hang...

    Read more
    0

  • Picking your first Board of Directors

    No Comments

    Congratulations! You have grown your business to the point that you need a board of directors (BOD). The good...

    Read more
    0

  • Debt: the toothsome tiger

    No Comments

    Cheap money is like cheap food. It tempts some people to overeat. Money has never been cheaper. Some nations,...

    Read more
    0

  • The Advice to Follow … Or Not

    No Comments

    “You shouldn’t work for anyone.” That odd advice came from my boss over 40 years ago. It was insightful,...

    Read more
    0

  • Cash and Your Kingdom

    No Comments

    No company ever failed when it had cash in the bank. This simple rule evades too many executives, from...

    Read more
    0

  • Episode 13: The unintended consequences of misguided policies

    No Comments

    http://toughthingsfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/Episode-13-The-unintended-consequences-of-misguided-policies.mp3Policies. Nobody likes to write them. Some employees refuse to live by them. But Silicon Valley’s longest serving CEO...

    Read more
    0
  • Tough Things First Podcast

    Tough Things First Podcast Launches

    No Comments

    The Tough Things First Podcast launched today. As if I were not busy enough. Several people have told me...

    Read more
    0

  • The key to hiring the best employees

    No Comments

    Micrel had the lowest employee turnover rate in the American semiconductor industry, and the highest rate of boomerang (returning)...

    Read more
    0

  • The Employee Happiness Quotient

    No Comments

    Unhappy employees don’t contribute much and rarely stay for long. Micrel, the semiconductor company I founded and led for...

    Read more
    0

  • The key to hiring the best employees

    No Comments

    Micrel had the lowest employee turnover rate in the American semiconductor industry, and the highest rate of boomerang (returning)...

    Read more
    0

  • How to control events and employees without actually controlling them

    No Comments

    Dictators are typically unpopular and short-lived. It is little wonder. People are by nature free agents, and resist being...

    Read more
    0

  • Passion and stress: Firing up the team without burning them out

    No Comments

    Passion is a good thing. During the 37 years at the helm of Micrel, we fired up our employees...

    Read more
    0

  • Momentum: how to keep employees engaged and energetic for the entire year

    No Comments

    Keeping people engaged and energetic for the entire year, or an entire decade, is like auto maintenance. The dials,...

    Read more
    0

  • When Bonuses Aren’t

    1 Comment

    A $100,000 Christmas bonus check will certainly get your receptionist’s attention. An oil and gas company in Texas did...

    Read more
    1