Career

When I took a Dale Carnegie course on public speaking we had to give 3 small speeches a night. There was a formula to follow, but there were no note cards or Power Point slides, just your memory and the formula to make it more compelling. If that was not fear inducing enough, during one class we had to re-enact old television commercials and perform like crazy cheetahs or baboons. It was embarrassing and humiliating at the same time....

When I found myself recently consulting the US Navy on how to improve their Supply Chain, it was another noteworthy peak in my career- as a consultant. In that brief consulting gig, I read reports addressed to the Secretary of Defense and during talks with the Navy the pentagon was mentioned as well as being “war time ready.”  So how did I get to this point in my career? I wasn’t one of those people that knew all along what I was...

I’ve worked on many major projects and here are the best lessons learned. Don’t budget so many projects in the New Year that you can’t deliver them. I worked at one pharmaceutical company and there were a limited amount of projects driven by a Project Officer and designed to fit the team’s work throughout the year. One project focused on streamlining the SAP Planning and Procurement exception messages. This one project contributed to...

Apple’s reason to exist is “lead the digital music revolution” and “reinvent the mobile phone” Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”   Those are visions that people breathe every day. Are your company leader’s truly inspiring people? Are they building an inspiring vision, attracting the best talent, building the best teams, creating a exceptional culture and...

First a few questions. Are you self aware? Are you ready to let go of what work makes you feel empty and cynical? What work fulfills and excites you? What do you do better than others? And finally – if you won the lottery what would you do? What would you do if you had all the money in the world? It comes down to what fulfills and excites you, doesn’t it? Why aren’t you doing this as a career right now? Think about it and don’t let...

After 7 years, my SAP position was eliminated last year at a Pharmaceutical Company.  I knew it was coming but it still managed to irritate me.  I had been instrumental in setting up an almost 20 Million Dollar cost savings project. I had resurrected SAP value engineering to provide additional benefits for the President (but Finance did “not have time”)…etc.  But if Finance decides to cut a position, it cuts no matter what. Then...