When I was a young Product Manager at Mattel, I was tasked with negotiating an important promotional deal. It was really my first meaningful negotiation assignment and involved confronting an eclectic artist/designer whose external eccentricities actually belied his business savvy. I recall vividly sitting in my boss’s office with my “adversary” and stumbling my way…
It occurred to me recently that certain concepts, trends, guideposts, whatever you want to call them, kept coming up in my reading, research, discussions, and consultations. They’re not necessarily new or comprehensive, but definitely relevant as businesses succeed and fail faster in a business environment that is increasingly global and digital. And they all begin…
At an early point in my career, I worked in the manufacturing division of a Fortune 500 company. I did production analyses and planning. In all honesty, I wasn’t too crazy about the gig. I was young and inexperienced and quite intimidated when I had to make my weekly trips from headquarters to the nearby…