team work

Employee passion drives results.

That's the title of a blog post I wrote back in 2012. Without question, that statement still holds true today.

Let’s imagine that you want to play the sales effectiveness game. What does it take to play this game well – effectively? At a minimum it takes folks in marketing and the folks in sales to play well together – as one team. Take a broader look, play with the time horizon, and you are likely to find that it takes folks in product development, engineering, strategy/finance, marketing, and sales to work well together.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

David Vinjamuri's book Accidental Branding provides a great hint to what drives great branding.

Spoiler alert: it doesn't come from marketers.

by: Idris Mootee

What do we know about creativity? We mistakenly narrowly associate creativity with film director, musician or an egotistic advertising creative director. The very idea of a creative director is so 70’s. It may be still relevant in the field of performance art as it is more about personal style, but in the world of marketing and design, it is an irrelevant role. I’ve seen many account planners who are more creative than the “creative directors” although they don't wear that hat.

by: John Caddell

While preparing yesterday's post on the business value of dissent, I stumbled upon some research by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson on team learning. The research centered on explaining a paradox--why in her studies did excellent teams make more errors than poor teams?

by: John Caddell

by: Guy Kawasaki

I received an email from Craig James that contained superb insights into the art of recruiting. With Craig's permission, I provide it below.