Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
I was thinking about my experience during my current search for my  next challenge and it dawned on my that this journey has some interesting parallels to Dorothy's experience in The Wizard of Oz. We both were surprised by a tornado that took us into an unfamiliar place, had to get our bearings and find a path that would hopefully lead us to success, met some interesting characters along the way who were helpful on the journey, and faced some unique challenges while travelling the road. Let's start from the beginning... Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. (more…)...
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What Have You Done For Me Lately?

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
I was speaking with someone recently who had recently been downsized from a company that they had been with for over 15 years. Over that 15 years they had moved up the corporate ladder and were regarded as a rising star in the organization early in their career. Over the past couple of years however their political "stock" had started to fall as the organization had shifted their focus and direction slightly and there had been some turnover in the senior management team. Ultimately this individual had been part of a broad set of job reductions that the company had taken to improve productivity. They were lamenting the fact that they had given 15 years of their life and hard work to an organization that didn't appreciate that legacy and they were feeling very "hard done by" by the whole situation. Having recently gone through a similar experience myself it gave me a great opportunity to reflect on what was different...
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Don’t Be Afraid Ask

Don’t Be Afraid Ask

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
Over the past couple of months as I have been looking for my next career challenge I have been lucky enough to enjoy a lot of amazing conversations, meet a lot of really interesting people, and learn a lot from both the people I am meeting as well as my own experiences going through this. One of the most important lessons I am drawing on though I learned through my last big career search: Don't Be Afraid To Ask I love meeting new people and I love great conversation, but ultimately neither of those things on their own are going to find me the right next opportunity. If I don't actually use those introductions and conversations to let people know what I'm looking for and how they can help then it is a wasted opportunity in the end. (more…)...
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Sniper With A Shotgun

Sniper With A Shotgun

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
Generally it is considered mutually exclusive to take the "shotgun" approach to innovation or the "sniper" approach to innovation. You are either in one camp or the other, but certainly not in both. In the shotgun approach you fire lots of little ideas at the wall in a seemingly random fashion in hopes that one of those ideas sticks and becomes a hit. With the sniper approach you spend much more time planning and you fire a single higher calibre round at the defined target, having done the prework and testing to validate that the selected target is the highest value option. (more…)...
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