Pain of Discipline vs Pain of Disappointment

Pain of Discipline vs Pain of Disappointmentby Chris Banescu –
“There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you’ll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.” ~ Nick Saban

We all pay a price for the lack of discipline. Whether it’s our physical or mental health, spiritual well-being, character, family life, career situation, financial status, friendships, or business condition, we always suffer if we don’t do the essential work to either improve, adapt, or deal with the changing circumstances of our life. The longer we avoid consistently doing the right things for ourselves, our families, and/or businesses, the worse things will get. We will feel the inevitable physical and psychological pains that arise when we let things slide and refuse to do the daily necessary work. [Read more…]

Esri: Solid Revenues, Conservative and Systematic Growth, No Layoffs, No Downsizing

Esri: Solid Revenues, Conservative and Systematic Growth, No Layoffs, No Downsizingby Chris Banescu –
“We have 9,000 employees worldwide and $912 million n revenue. In our 43 years, we have never missed a quarter. We’ve never had any layoffs; we’ve never had any downsizing. It’s just been very conservative, systematic growth.” ~ Jack Dangermond

A few years ago Inc.com magazine interviewed Jack Dangermond the co-founder of Esri, a global corporation that supplies geographic information system software, web GIS, and geodatabase management applications. Dangermond highlighted the company’s stellar and systematic growth despite its conservative management style and lack of any layoffs in its 43 years of operation. [Read more…]

Courage is the Virtue that Makes All Other Virtues Possible

Courage is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. Courage helps us develop and sharpen our character. by Chris Banescu –
Courage is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. Courage helps us develop and sharpen our character. Courage is what enables us to practice all the other virtues, especially when doing so exacts a significant cost in our personal life, professional career, or business.

It’s not enough to know and believe in the virtues. We must act on them. Belief in, intellectual affirmation of, or knowledge of the virtues alone is not enough to develop our character. We must practice them! And this is where courage comes in and helps us to take appropriate action.

All courageous speech and conduct must be grounded in reality, ethics, and integrity. Our words and actions must support and defend truth, goodness, justice, and righteousness. This is important, because unethical, corrupt, or wicked individuals can also use courage to support evil purposes and unrighteous goals.

Wisdom needs to accompany courage. [Read more…]

Manners, The Lubricating Oil of Organizational Relationships

Manners, The Lubricating Oil of Organizational Relationships“Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. Manners – simple things like saying “please” and “thank you” and knowing a person’s name or asking after her family – enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not.

Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. If analysis shows that someone’s brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy – that is, a lack of manners.” ~ Peter F. Drucker

Employees Are An Organization’s Most Valuable Resource

Employees Are An Organization's Most Valuable Resourceby Chris Banescu –
Employees are an organization’s most valuable resource. They must be managed fairly and equitably. They must be appreciated and respected. Leaders must strive to build relationships based on integrity, trust, and mutual understanding with the individuals they lead. Management must always remember that employees, especially engaged, loyal, smart, productive, and responsible ones are to be managed with care and concern.

Employees who are treated well, know their jobs are secure and management has their backs, are paid fairly and equitably, and are trusted and respected by their leaders and organizations, will be much more productive and loyal. They will literally give it their all and always strive to go “above-and-beyond,” safe in the knowledge that the company they work for genuinely cares about them and has a vested interest in their success and well-being. [Read more…]

How To Demotivate Employees and Undermine Morale and Productivity

Demotivate Employees and Undermine Morale and Productivityby Chris Banescu –
Here’s a list of dysfunctional, unethical, and destructive organizational practices that I have personally experienced or seen while working with or consulting for various companies, corporations, universities, and non-profit institutions. Each of these will demotivate employees, undermine their morale, and negatively affect their productivity. Each of them will corrode organizational cohesiveness, foment suspicion and resentment of management, and destroy employees’ trust in and respect of their leaders.

Once more than one of these dysfunctional situations become normalized and spread across a company, then employee dissatisfaction and disengagement will increase exponentially. Quality of work will be negatively impacted. Great employees will begin to leave. Then the good ones will quit. The remaining employees will stop caring, stop speaking out, stop trying to address problems or improve anything inside the company. They will “go to gray.” They will do the minimal work required of them and no more.

If this pathology continues over longer periods of time, a human resources crisis will envelop the entire company and disaster (financial, ethical, legal, criminal, etc.) will inevitably follow. [Read more…]

Classic Shell Rescues Microsoft Windows Dreadful User Interface

Classic Shell Rescues Microsoft Windows Dreadful User Interfaceby Chris Banescu –

Classic Shell, a free desktop-enhancement and customizing software program, has rescued the dreadful new user interfaces in Microsoft Windows 8, 8.1, and 10. Created by a handful of developers, this program does what thousands of Microsoft programmers and clueless executives at a multi-hundred billion dollar corporation failed to do: deliver an intuitive and user-friendly software interface that meets their current customer’s expectations, rather than frustrate and confuse them!

Like tens of millions of other Windows XP users, back in 2014 I had to abandon Microsoft’s most stable and best designed operating system. Microsoft intentionally ended all support and updates for Windows XP on April 8, 2014, forcing its users to needlessly upgrade to the latest version of Windows. Since the bloated Windows 8 requires more system resources, much faster CPUs, and a lot more memory, Microsoft essentially strong-armed its customers into buying newer hardware [Read more…]